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I have mixed feelings about "armed guards" in schools.
An armed guard at the school only means they can react, and at that point it's far too late. Once an armed guard hears a gunshot it usually means that someone has already been shot or worse. An armed guard means a greatly increased response time. In this case it helped, but the shooter was a fourteen year old boy with a handgun - But if it's a twenty-one year old man with an assault rifle who is moderately trained I doubt a single armed guard would be able to handle the situation.
At the same time, who is paying for this? Our local high school is having budget issues, and one of the ideas they have come up with is cutting ALL after school activities. I'm talking band, football, cheer, basketball, baseball, debate club, science club, everything - and not just for one year, but for the next four years. My kid might go through four years of high school without any of this because the school can't afford a janitor and insurance, yet somehow the school is going to be expected to add in one or two armed guards per school? That's a bit much.
Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't mind seeing a well armed US Marine at the front door of every US school... But armed guards will be prohibitively expensive, will not prevent shootings, and will only increase reaction time - and in some cases might not help at all. Keep in mind they had armed guards at Columbine, and that didn't seem to help at all.
I was thinking about this earlier.... My kid's middle school has some 600 kids that goes to it. How many of those kids have mental issues - and access to fire arms? Scary.
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