On Tuesday morning in New Orleans, ReNEW Dolores T. Aaron Academy went into lockdown after a man allegedly walked into the school with a gun. The suspect is 24-year-old Mario Harris, and he managed to get through the front doors of an elementary school with a firearm in hand. No shots were fired. No one was injured. But let’s not pretend that means this was a harmless incident.

Parents panicked. Children were terrified. Staff scrambled to respond. And once again, we’re left talking about how quickly it was handled, instead of why it happened in the first place.

Let’s be clear. There is no such thing as a foolproof security protocol in a country saturated with firearms. Lockdowns, drills, locked doors, security cameras are all reactive. In a country where someone can walk into a school at all with a gun, these systems are just fingers plugging holes in a dam that’s already crumbling.

This wasn’t a ‘near-miss’. It was another flashing red warning light, and we keep hitting snooze.

We praise the staff, and we should. But we also need to stop acting like this is normal. Like this is just the cost of doing business in American education. It’s not. It’s a policy failure. It’s a legislative failure. And it’s a moral one, too.

How many times do we have to run this same story with slightly different names before we decide we’re tired of being ‘thankful’ no one died? We should be angry that kids have to be lucky to stay alive at school.

Until we deal with the root issue of guns, this will keep happening. Schools can review their procedures, beef up front office training, add buzzers, hire guards, and install more cameras, but they can’t keep out every gun. Not in a country where guns are easier to get than healthcare, and politicians keep offering thoughts and prayers instead of policy.

Let’s stop pretending this is normal. Let’s stop settling for ‘no one got hurt’ as the bar.

Because next time, we might not be so lucky.

(Source)

• Lockdown lifted after man enters New Orleans school with gun