School shootings have several prominent features that might be addressed in law and policy in order to reduce the likelihood of mass killings at schools. This proposal suggests the fewest changes that would have the greatest likely beneficial effects.

1. Station at least one police officer at every primary and secondary school in the United States.

The deterrent effect should be substantial because shooting rampage killers typically attack targets where no armed resistance is expected at all. They attack soft targets. A single armed, trained, and experienced officer would in many cases deter the attempt, and in some additional cases stop the attempt with force.

The entire U.S. had 98,817 primary and secondary schools (K through 12) in the 2010-2011 school year, comprising over 49 million students (49,177,617 students reported by the States).
[U.S. Department of Education, Numbers and Types of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2010–11, Tables 1 and 3.]

In 2008, the latest year in the federal data, the U.S. had 461,000 sworn officers.
[U.S. Bureau of Justice, Home | Law Enforcement | Local Police]

Taking 100,000 officers away from their usual work during school days and hours might be too much of a drain on law enforcement resources, so new officers would need to be hired. Let’s assume 100,000 officers are hired across the nation for this purpose, one per school. However, the new hires would not necessarily be the ones stationed at the schools, and some schools would have more than one officer. So paying for one officer per school is merely the federal contribution to this effort.

“The median expected salary for a typical Police Patrol Officer in the United States is $50,406.”
[Salary.com, Police Patrol Officer Salary]

New hires should expect to make less money than the overall average pay. But hiring an officer involves other expenses, in addition to pay, such as social security, training, equipment, benefits, etc. So let’s assume a cost for a new hire at 50k/year.

I suggest a federal program to add 100k new police officers nationwide, paid for with federal money, provided that the law enforcement department guards each school with at least one sworn and armed officer. Cost per year for 100,000 new officers is 5 billion dollars. Given that there are approximately 50 million students in schools K-12, the federal cost for this increase in security is only $100.00 per student per year. Some additional State and local money would also be needed, in many cases.

2. Require, by law, secure doors on all classrooms.

Many schools have already instituted this measure. It is relatively inexpensive and seems to be one effective response when a school shooting occurs. The school goes on lockdown, making it difficult for the shooter to kill a large number of persons. With this approach, teachers and students would not have to lock themselves in bathrooms and closets. A secure door should be unable to be kicked in, and should withstand multiple rifle shots without opening.

One of the most effective changes in airplane security has been secure cockpit doors. This inexpensive change is sited by security experts as much more effective than pat-downs and scanners. The other effective change in airline security has been a change in the knowledge of the passengers. They know that they must oppose any attempted hi-jacking with force:

“Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcement of cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back.” (Schneider on Security)

So, in addition to secure classroom doors, training would be useful:

3. Require training for all teachers in measures to take if there is a school shooter. If a shooting occurs, every teacher and administrator will know what to do. And everyone will know what everyone else in the school is doing in response. “Follow your training.”

Also, hold school lock-down drills for students, not specific to mass shootings, but as a simple security drill, not unlike fire drills. You don’t want to make the kids constantly worry about school shootings, so keep it low-key. If everyone is trained in what to do, more lives will be saved.

4. Ban LCMs (large capacity magazines)

Forget about an assault weapons ban. The Clinton-style ban has not been effective. Rifles are available which are not classified as assault weapons, and yet are just as dangerous.
[Updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban: Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003]

Instead, ban high-capacity rifle and pistol magazines. Hi-cap mags help mass shooters kill more persons in less time, with less possibility of physical intervention by victims and bystanders. Magazines with 30, 60, even 100 rounds are available and yet serve no substantive purpose in hunting, sporting, or self-defense. Ten rounds of ammunition or less is almost always sufficient for a wide range of self-defense situations. In a very unusual situation, a law-abiding citizen can load a second magazine for another 10 rounds.

But the Clinton-era hi-cap magazine ban would not be sufficient, since it permitted millions of pre-ban manufactures magazines to be owned and sold. The ban on high capacity ammunition magazines would, unfortunately, need to prohibit all ownership and use of hi-cap magazines, except by government, military, and law enforcement. This ban would be very unpopular with gun owners, but it would also be much more effective than banning certain features on rifles labeled somewhat arbitrarily as “assault rifles”.

Perhaps there could be a gun magazine buy-back program, where owners would turn in their magazines for money. This could be done through gun companies, so that owners would mail in their hi-cap magazines in exchange for credit toward new low capacity (10 or less) magazines and other gun accessories (but not firearms or ammunition).

5. Require rifles with detachable magazines to have a system to prevent removal of the magazine without the use of a tool. This requirement has been law in CA and MA for many years now. It prevents a criminal from easily reloading a new magazine, limiting the harm that can be done. I think this measure is an unfortunate necessity. The burden it imposes on law-abiding citizens is relatively mild. But it would also offer a significant obstacle to the misuse of a firearm.

Rights and Restrictions

People have a fundamental and inalienable right to self-defense. But the right to own a gun for self-defense is a derived right, not a fundamental right. U.S. citizens have a qualified and limited right to own a gun for self-defense. Reasonable restrictions can be imposed, as long as the law-abiding citizen is still able to exercise his fundamental right to self-defense.

Update (12/21)

Fox new article states: “There are about 100,000 public schools in the U.S. Assuming an average annual salary of $50,000 for each police officer, the cost of stationing a cop in every school would be somewhere around $5 billion.”

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.