Two years after the Covenant School shooting shook Nashville and shattered families, Tennessee lawmakers want you to know they’ve done something. They’ve thrown millions at high-tech weapons detection systems, slapped bullet-resistant film on classroom windows, and turned every public school into a pseudo-security checkpoint. They’ve installed metal detectors, poured money into AI systems, and rolled out armed School Resource Officers (SROs) in every public school.

Safety advocates call the tech a “100 percent” effective deterrent. And sure, maybe it does catch the occasional dumbass teenager. But here’s the question no one in the Tennessee statehouse wants to answer. What if we didn’t need bulletproof film on kindergarten windows in the first place?

What if instead of building fortresses for children, we built a system where school wasn’t a war zone? What if we passed common sense gun laws that kept AR-15s out of the hands of 18-year-olds with manifestos?

Governor Bill Lee’s “school safety” plan didn’t happen in a vacuum. It came after a 28-year-old walked into a Christian elementary school with legally purchased firearms and murdered six people, including three nine-year-olds. Instead of saying, maybe people shouldn’t be able to buy weapons of war as easily as they buy Sudafed, the state doubled down on the one thing America’s always ready to invest in. More guns. More walls. More fear.

Meanwhile, Tennessee’s education system is gasping for air. Teacher shortages? Check. Underpaid staff? Check. Crumbling infrastructure? Yup. You think those AI weapons detectors are going to fix the HVAC when it’s 90 degrees in May and the A/C fails for the fifth time? You think a bullet-resistant window will help when your fourth-grade teacher’s buying their own paper towels and whiteboard markers?

We’re treating symptoms with expensive band-aids because the people in power are too cowardly, or too bought, to treat the disease.

The cure? We know it. Background checks. Red flag laws. Age restrictions. Assault weapons bans. But in Tennessee, that kind of talk gets you labeled “anti-freedom,” while it’s somehow perfectly patriotic to force kids to walk through metal detectors like they’re entering a courthouse.

We’ve normalized the idea that the cost of learning is risking your life. And when that cost comes due, the state doesn’t rethink the system, it builds a prettier cage.

How many counselors, teachers, and mental health programs could we have funded with the money spent on this surveillance infrastructure? How many kids could’ve had smaller class sizes, clean classrooms, and real support instead of just security theater?

Bulletproof windows won’t stop a massacre, but they sure as hell make it look like we ‘tried’.

(Source)

Two years after Covenant shooting, Tennessee schools see major safety upgrades