State lawmakers are back at it, proving once again that when it comes to school safety, the preferred solution is buying technology instead of confronting reality. This time from the state of Georgia.

A new proposal moving through the state Capitol, House Bill 1023, would require weapons detection systems at every student point of entry in all Georgia public schools. The bill is sponsored by Georgia House Majority Leader Chuck Efstration, a Republican, of course, who explained his reasoning by comparing schools to courthouses. As a practicing attorney, he says, he walks through metal detectors at courthouses all the time, so students should have the same experience when entering school.

Someone really should point out to him that schools are not courtrooms.

Courthouses are controlled environments. Schools are not. Courthouses deal with adults who mostly chose to be there. Schools are filled with kids, backpacks, crowded hallways, class changes, and daily chaos. Treating schools like miniature judicial complexes is less serious safety policy and more political posturing.

The vendor slated for Georgia’s rollout is Evolv Technologies, another player in the booming school security marketplace. This is being sold as prevention, but these systems do not stop guns from entering buildings. They only detect something after someone has already brought a weapon onto campus. That is not prevention. That’s just notification.

And we already know how this story tends to end.

Companies like Omnilert and ZeroEyes promised near-perfect accuracy and delivered false positives instead. Musical instruments became firearms. Snack bags became threats. Innocent students became “suspects.” Each bad alert triggered lockdowns and armed police responses, putting real children in real danger over algorithmic mistakes. Yet here we are again, scaling the same idea in another state and expecting different results.

The funding is coming from a mix of safety grants and redirected public money, which is another way of saying that resources that could go toward education are being funneled into surveillance hardware and vendor contracts. Teacher pay is still lagging. Classrooms still lack counselors and mental health support. But somehow there is always money available when a security company shows up with a sales pitch.

Once again, public schools are being transformed into revenue streams.

And, as always, the core problem is being carefully avoided.

Georgia is a gun-friendly state. Firearms do not magically materialize inside schools. They come from homes, cars, relatives, friends, and unsecured storage. They come from adults who have easy access to weapons and minimal accountability for how those weapons are handled.

This bill does nothing about that.

No safe storage requirements. No meaningful restrictions on access. No serious attempt to keep guns away from kids before they ever reach a school door. Just scanners at entrances and press releases about safety.

Efstration says students deserve the same security as courthouses. But courthouses also have armed deputies everywhere, controlled perimeters, strict entry procedures, and adults who understand what they are walking into. Schools get detectors and hope.

If the plan is simply to buy machines and declare victory, then this is not safety; it’s optics.

Georgia is preparing to spend serious money on weapons detection while refusing to confront why weapons keep ending up in the hands of school-age children in the first place. Lawmakers are choosing gadgets over governance. Kids get surveillance instead of solutions. Vendors get paid while classrooms stay underfunded.

Same script. Same security theater. Same aversion to doing anything about guns.

(Source)

• New proposal requires weapons detection systems at all Georgia public schools