Misguided Legislation

As a result of the recent school shooting in Florida there seems to be a new piece of legislation coming out every day and Republican Kay Granger (Texas U.S. Congresswoman 12th District) has decided to dip her foot in that pool. Rep. Granger published a press release with details here. She released the following statement on her Facebook page:

Yesterday, I announced plans to introduce legislation that will encourage local school districts to buy and install metal detectors at all local schools. When we decided to make airports safe from armed terrorists, we installed metal detectors and dramatically increased safety. It’s time we did the same thing for our schools. By helping local schools purchase metal detectors we can stop the scourge of violence in our schools.

My plan will:
*Provide federal grant money to local school districts seeking to install metal detectors;
*Require any school receiving the money to limit entrances so that metal detectors provide protection;
*Require any school applying for the grant to work with local law enforcement to qualify for the grant.

This is a simple step that will have a profound impact. This is also a common-sense solution that goes beyond the debates over mental health and guns. Let’s focus on stopping criminals with guns from entering our schools. This plan will do just that- Representative Kay Granger’ s Facebook page

Basically her plan will turn schools into prisons, more so than most students probably already feel that it is. I shared her post on my Facebook page to see what people thought. I got a response from a recent guest of mine Peter Churchman who is running for U.S. Congress for District 17 in Texas. He is not a direct competitor to the congresswoman but if he is elected he will be in opposition to her plan. Mr. Churchman’s comment below:

This is a misguided attempt at legislation.

It is federal overreach.

It is neither covered by the welfare clause, the neccessary and proper clause, or the war power clauses. Therefore it is unconstitutional.

Furthermore, where is the federal government going to get the money to pay for 1000s of metal detectors and staff to operate them?

Additionally, saying that metal detectors in airports are the reason we haven’t had an aircraft used they way they were in 9/11 is false. The failure rate for the T.S.A. stopping contraband is anywhere from 80% to 95% depending on which study you trust. Our airplanes are safe from 9/11 style attacks because we armed the pilots and put a barricade between them and the passengers, and we now have air marshalls.

We do not need these unnecessary false security measures to protect our schools. We do not need to arm teachers.

Their is one simple plan that will work in my opinion. That plan is to stop actively disarming teachers. We should repeal all laws preventing school staff from protecting themselves and the portion of the public that they serve. We should repeal all gun free zones that make people sitting ducks. We can solve this problem with less government. The worst thing we could do is add more government regulations.

(Also for a small 3a Texas high school that had ~450 students if you installed 2 metal detectors and assumed a rate of 1 student per 30 seconds passing threw the metal detectors it would take 112 minutes to get everyone into the school. It is not a practical idea.) — Peter Churchman

Mr. Churchman my not be everyone's cup of tea when it comes to gun control but he has some very valid points. Let’s start with the metal detectors, after researching how effective they are I realized that metal detectors are really ineffective mainly because they require large amounts of man power to be effective which is going to make this bill Rep. Granger is proposing very expensive.

Also, Mr. Churchman points out it is going to take roughly 30 seconds per student to get through the metal detectors. As someone who has personally ran metal detectors as a member of the military I can personally attest to the fact that 30 seconds is not accurate at all, you’re looking more at 2 mins per student. According to my calculations that’s more like 7.5 hours to get a small Texas high school of 450 students into the school. This is due to the fact that metal detectors are set off by any piece of metal that conducts electricity and also because kids are going to find it funny to purposely set the detectors off. So, every time the detector goes off the students get searched making it a big waste of time.

I can point out many other ways that metal detectors are ineffective but it would take way too long for this article. To wrap this up, personally I feel like Mr.Churchman’s solution is the only way we are going to be safer.

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