Father of Slain Parkland Student Reveals What Schools Really Need To Do To Combat Shootings
Whenever a deadly school shooting occurs, the general response from the media is as reflexive as when a doctor hits your kneecap with the rubber plexor: ban guns. It doesn’t matter which guns. Just ban them.
The tragedy in Santa Fe, Texas presented a bit of a snag there, however. There was no AR-15 or any other so-called “assault weapon” involved. Instead, the killings were done with a shotgun and a pistol.
Those are two weapons no lawmaker would attempt to ban in a million years, which is kind of a moot point anyway considering both are protected under the Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller.
Well, expanded background checks would have prevented this, right? Nope. Both the shooter and his father — who owned the guns — would have passed. Mental health examinations? While the shooter was bullied, we don’t yet know of any “red flags” that violence was imminent.
So how can these killings be stopped? Andrew Pollack, the father of one of the students slain in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida thinks he knows.
Instead of blaming the guns or process by which they’re purchased, he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Friday that it’s merely a matter of making sure our schools are protected — including with armed guards.
The conversation with Cooper began with Pollack talking about how he was dealing with the grief of losing his daughter Meadow in the February attack.
“You talk about anger, and I know you have been turning that anger into action ever since your daughter was killed,” Cooper said. “You’re focusing on school safety. Do you think anything has changed? I mean, are we in the same place as we were before the Parkland shooting?”
Do you think that Andrew Pollack is right?
“Well, I think not much has changed because it happened again. You know, after 9/11, there hasn’t been one hijacking that I know of,” Pollack said.
“But today, we sit here, me and you, talking and it’s the 22nd school shooting of this year. Now when is enough going to be enough where people say listen, we need to have single-point entries and metal detectors at the school just like in a courthouse or at a stadium. We’re safe in a stadium, but we let our kids go to school and they’re not safe.”
As The Daily Wire notes, Pollack’s statistic about 22 school shootings is false; he’s using the incredibly misleading statistics from CNN which count any shooting that happens near a school. Since Pollack is an activist for increased school safety, this isn’t entirely a surprise.
Cooper then asked Pollack about his organization, Americans for Class.
“Well, what I got involved with is, I don’t want it to be politicized,” Pollack said. “It shouldn’t be in this country where people make it political. Left, the right. You know, we all have kids.
“So after a lot of these shootings, I saw that a lot of the focus was just on guns, and for me, it really bothered me because it’s something that every American wants … our kids being safe. And that’s something we can do right away. So that’s why I started AmericansForClass.org, to work with parents throughout the country on keeping our kids and our teachers safe because look at our society, Anderson. We grew up in times where we were safe at school. I met with over 100 teachers in the Parkland area, and (they) still to this day do not feel safe going to school, and the students don’t feel safe.”
“I’m pretty angry that there is another 10… who are dead … when is enough going to be enough?"
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was slain in Parkland, wants two changes: Single point entry, and metal detectors at schools cnn.it/2KEEqgr
According to The Daily Wire, this wasn’t the only media appearance Pollack made where he said the answer to preventing school shootings was in protection via single-point entry, metal detectors and even armed guards.
“It’s a process. It can’t just be one step, you know?” Pollack said. “There’s layers of security. So you have to start with the security of … entry points. You’ve gotta have limited entry points. You need metal detectors, and you need armed guards. It’s really three layers of security to protect our kids.”
Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland shooting victim: "When's the country just going to say, 'Listen it's enough. We need single point entries with metal detectors.' And none of this happens again in a school, ever." #Cavuto
What a concept — instead of talking about banning guns (which we can’t really ban anyway), we talk about making our schools safer the same way we made our airports safer in the wake of 9/11.
It’s a sorry thing that we have to do this, but it’s one of the only ways we can stop these sorts of things from happening. Gun control isn’t effective. Neither are clear backpacks. It’s time we started getting real about protecting our students.
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