Guns are the cause of gun violence in schools

America is again reeling from yet another deadly mass shooting. The victims at Santa Fe High School in Texas were killed by guns.

Target hardening, also referred to simply as hardening when made clear by the context, is a term used by police officers, those working in security, and the military referring to the strengthening of the security of a building or installation in order to protect it in the event of attack or reduce the risk of theft.

Unbelievably, Betsy DeVos, is charged, by her cabinet appointment, to protect children from gun violence in schools, but she is ignoring guns as the cause of "gun violence". #Marchforourlives

W.B. Ray High School Principal Cissy Reynolds-Perez has suggested a better approach

March for our Lives

Betsy DeVos’s federal school safety commission won’t look at guns
The commission was formed after a mass shooting. But it won’t look at guns.

An echo opinion by Tom Whitehurst Jr. published in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Thank God they didn't "harden" Carroll High School when I was a student. They didn't call it hardening back then. But there was serious talk about fencing and heightening security after Donnie Contreras was shot in the back, in the fall of 1973, during my junior year.

A teenage non-student who came to campus gunning for someone else shot Donnie by mistake, paralyzing him below the chest. We all knew it could have happened to any of us on that day. But we weren't worried that it would happen again. We were right.

Editorial board member Allison Ehrlich remembers the 1999 Columbine shooting from the perspective of a graduating senior at King High School. She and her classmates were shocked, but from a safe distance, at what what they knew instinctively was an anomaly. They didn't think they'd be next. They were right.

Things no longer seem remote or unlikely since the May 18 shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, that left 10 dead. Some survivors talked as if they half-expected something like it to happen. They were right.

The transition from fear to anticipation and acceptance that it'll happen to them is the disturbing change that has occurred since as recently as the Valentine's Day massacre in Parkland, Fla.

• Imagine going to school with the still statistically remote possibility of a shooting weighing heavily on your mind. 
• Also imagine school being like a fortress.

That's the solution favored by the Texas lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Rather than dealing with the cause of gun violence ~ meaning "guns" the Texas officials are deflecting the issue by advocating for more guns! In a guest column for USA TODAY, Attorney General Ken Paxton urged that the Israeli approach to school security be considered. He also lamented "a deep-seated cultural decay — fatherless children, degradation of human life across society, widespread moral confusion, etc." Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has said pretty much the same. (Guards operate under the auspices of the Israel Police and undergo rigorous training every four months. Roughly 40% of applicants fail the training test, ensuring that only the cream of the crop defend the schools.) ~ IOW- more guns!

These Texas elected politicians should look past the ends of their noses, rather than update the old (wrong minded) Reagan-era myth of the welfare queen, for political purposes. They might notice that dads these days are more hands-on than any time in human history. The Class of 2018 are probably (and justifiably!) sick of all the helicoptering.

Sure, divorce has soared. But let's be real about that. Many of today's divorced couples would have stayed married in name only in previous generations.

"Degradation of human life" might be code for abortion. Patrick didn't bother with code. He actually wove abortion into his Santa Fe shooting narrative. Yet, abortion is more restricted than at any time since Roe vs. Wade, especially in Texas.

Moreover, Israel is a country where everyone serves mandatory military service because, unlike Santa Fe, Texas, Israel is perpetually under threat of annihilation. Israeli school security is not extreme for Israel, but it would be extreme for Texas.

It also would be expensive. It requires people, special skills and equipment. It's astonishingly two-faced of Paxton, defender of the state's woefully inadequate school funding system and basically a perennial foe of public school spending, to talk about school security measures that would cost real money.

He and Patrick are just blowing smoke to keep gun restrictions out of the conversation.

Maybe Israeli-style security would have thwarted the Santa Fe shooter. But Ray High School Principal Cissy Reynolds-Perez has suggested a better approach that might have identified and dissuaded him from picking up a gun in the first place — more school guidance counselors. She points out that school counselors might be assigned to 500 to 700 students, which she compared accurately to a small town, population-wise.

Reynolds-Perez made that suggestion during a round table assembled by Gov. Greg Abbott in response to the Santa Fe shooting. Our governor, to his credit, has shown a much more open mind than would have been expected of an avowed gun-rights enthusiast such as himself. He said we must take action. He assembled the round table with a mix of people guaranteed to bring differing views. And Abbott refused to declare gun restrictions off limits.

Reynolds-Perez attracted attention to the cause in March, when she instigated a Corpus Christi ISD-wide meeting with our state legislative delegation after the Parkland shooting. She also asked the entire Ray student body to write letters to share their feelings and suggestions — and received responses from almost all. Her recommendations to the round table reflected those responses.

When CNN invited Reynolds-Perez for an on-camera interview, she brought along 11 Ray students. She told CNN that Abbott "genuinely heard our voices" during the round table. 

Something consequential just might be in motion. 

That's good because something has to change. It's graduation weekend for many high schools and Parkland and Santa Fe has defined the Class of 2018.

We talk about preserving our way of life, often in context of protecting or expanding Second Amendment rights. The way of life we should defend at all cost is a carefree high school experience not dependent on a police state — like what existed before Donnie was shot in the back.   

Tom Whitehurst Jr. at tom.whitehurst@caller.com