As the country attempts to get its arms around yet another mass shooting tragedy, first, at the Lane Bryant store in Tinley Park, Illinois and now at Northern Illinois University, school officials say that "it's unlikely that anyone could have stopped [the] shooter."
NIU Police Chief Don Grady said: "It's a horrendous circumstance, and as much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning."
But the real question needs to include not only how well schools and other places where people gather to conduct their business are prepared, communicate and respond but also how can we deter these mass shooting events. Can we? Are we satisfied in concluding that "there is only so much that schools can do" to prepare or prevent these types of events?
I think not! Have we been able to control, prevent and prepare for other types of tragedies such as hijacking of airlines? Despite the costs, the imperfections of the system of pre-screening passengers and baggage, the use of air marshals as a possible deterrent and other techniques to make the skies safer is there only so much we can do? Have we done it yet? Is there enough of a brain trust effort already convened to look at the issues from more angles and come up with more and better solutions? Perhaps we need classroom and library and residence hall marshals in our schools. Most higher learning schools probably have enough military or law enforcement trained personnel among its population to build a trained force of "citizens corps" such as the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) that will be equipped to respond or perhaps diffuse some of these situations. While this may not be the answer the point is to consider have we done all we can do or is there more to get prepared for emergencies, if we just continue to find solutions in an organized way with a countrywide focus. This is no longer an nice to have or an option. Lives are worth more than money as we seem to have plenty of that despite the economy, mortage and real estate crises and political campaigning.
Priorities and common sense needs to prevail.
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