What is it with school bathrooms and guns lately? This time, a private security guard at Bowen Elementary in Bryan, Texas, allegedly left his gun in a staff restroom. Was he leaving the gun for Michael Corleone?

The Bryan ISD tried to assure parents there was never a threat, and thankfully no student found the weapon. A staff member discovered it first, and the guard was promptly fired. The district also promised to “review safety protocols,” which is basically the bureaucratic equivalent of saying “our bad.”

While school districts love to tell parents that having School Resource Officers or contracted guards on campus makes everyone safer, the data says otherwise. Study after study has shown that SROs rarely, if ever, stop school shootings. What they do bring are more arrests of students, more discipline problems, and, apparently, more chances for a kid to stumble across a loaded handgun in the bathroom.

Incidents like this don’t harden schools against violence. They just put deadly weapons that much closer to students who might decide to use them.

Guns never belong in schools. Not in backpacks, not in bathrooms, and definitely not strapped to guards who can’t even manage the basic task of keeping their weapon on their hip.

(Source)

• BISD: Contracted security guard fired after leaving weapon in a staff restroom