That’s the first thing most politicians say after a school shooting or other tragedy. It’s a nice thing to say, but it’s an easy thing to say… and an easy way to make sure we don’t use the country’s emotional state to drive politics.

But Politics is emotionally driven. Our Country and society have always been emotionally driven… and how we *feel* about things is what determines our legislation at every level.

The second thing politicians do is either double down on Gun Rights or double down on Gun Control. They look at the gun and decide that it’s the most controversial figure in the equation, and that strengthening it, or weakening it, is the fix-all solution to the problem with school violence. 

It used to be that when there was a school-related shooting, it was headline news. With the shooting at Old Dominion University last week, maybe the casualty count just wasn’t high enough to be relevant in the media. Still, it’s a rare occurrence for potential victims actually to beat the shooter to death, which a brave group of students did when confronted by Mohamed Bailor Jalloh.

What are we to do as a nation, as a society, and as parents? If the answer were as simple as “thoughts and prayers” or changing gun legislation, it would probably have happened already. 

There is no magic bullet to fix the violence in our schools. There isn’t a single ONE thing we can do to stop it. However, if we stand together in solidarity to protect our children, I believe we can make them safer.

Nationwide, we defend our interests with Armed Security, from Government Officials and Offices to baseball games to local nightclubs. But when we put our most sacred and important commodity – our children – in a Government Facility, we leave them defenseless. This is unacceptable. The Federal Government needs to pass a recurring spending bill to earmark funds via grant application available to all public schools, based on student body size, to hire and make available committed armed security professionals at every public school. 

There are approximately 100,000 Public Schools in the Country today, the Old Dominion Shooting was at a University, but this is now discussing a more popular target, K-12. 

The average salary of an armed security guard is $45,000/year. For an annual Federal Price Tag of $10 Billion, we could have 2 armed security guards in every single public school in the country- some schools might need more, and some might need less. Still, because it’s through a grant application, school boards could determine on a case-by-case basis what they need before applying. If a school already has security guards, school boards could apply for funding to expand security systems, such as metal detectors and/or single-point entry protocols. 

$10 Billion sounds like a lot of money, doesn’t it? However, to put it into perspective, $10 Billion costs less than one week of War in Iran. In terms of Foreign Aid, we have sent nearly 200 Billion Dollars to Ukraine over the past few years, the same amount would have made a Federal Program such as this sustainable for over 16 years, adjusting for inflation and rising costs.

If an attacker wanted to cause maximum damage at a school, they wouldn’t have to wait until school was in session; they’d simply have to be there when the doors open in the morning or when they open again at the end of the day, as all the students are bottlenecked coming and going. Most public schools have police or sheriff’s offices within quick-response distance, at a minimum, every single day in the morning and the afternoon- Uniformed Law Enforcement could be on scene at most public schools, providing a constant presence in case they need to respond immediately to a threat.

In summary, it would be easy to make our schools safer with some common-sense local solutions and put our tax dollars to work for our most important resource. The Federal Government will likely never quit spending our money overseas for aid programs and war. 

However, they could easily start spending some of our money domestically to actually Make American Students Safe Again.

Collin Duprel is a guest columnists for the Rapid City Post. Opinions expressed may not necessarily represent the views of the Rapid City Post, it’s affiliates, or advertisers.