Can We Actually Protect Schoolkids From Mass Shootings?

Today I write as both a researcher (in conflict, terrorism, and security studies) and as the father of daughters who start first grade and pre-K on August first. And I can't help thinking about the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Who could have scarcely imagined the collision course that first day of school in a quiet Connecticut town put its children and teachers on? But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a more productive and promising conversation that we can have if we are truly serious about finding ways to protect schoolchildren from becoming victims in mass-casualty shootings.

Like many, I've watched and participated in the debates - the growing dissention and moral outrage over the role of so-called "assault weapons" in school and other mass-casualty shootings. And I've watched the efforts to responsibly and effectively address this challenge fail both repeatedly, and spectacularly. Second Amendment advocates forcefully assert a Constitutionally protected right to bear arms, while gun-control advocates cite scores of evidence that in the United States we are indeed facing an epidemic of gun violence.

Occasionally a mass-casualty event (like a school shooting) breaks into the news cycle, stays there for a few days, and then disappears. Despite the inevitable hand-wringing, candlelight vigils, finger pointing, and moral outrage that has become de rigueur in the aftermath there is little serious and informed dialog and pretty much nothing changes. That has to stop.

What I propose here is that we - together – support efforts to develop, test, and employ technologies that have a significant chance to neutralize a would-be shooting spree, while side-stepping the morass of gun-control debates that continues to stymie any effective changes that can really protect our kids.

There have been furious debates centered around arming teachers and/or putting armed guards in schools. I find this to be an untenable solution for several reasons - chief among them, we know that most people often freeze or fail to act quickly and decisively when they find themselves in life-threatening scenarios, even when they are armed and have gone through specialized training. But also, many mass-shooters come prepared for firearms to be used against them, outfitted with tactical gear and body armor that protects them from this kind of armed response. And I think that is a critically important - but oft overlooked - issue.

So here are some technologies that can (and should) be explored to secure and protect our schools. Some of it sounds like far-off science fiction – but indeed these are technologies that are being developed, tested, researched, and in some cases deployed. The future of advanced and non-lethal technologies is coming faster than we think.

• First, there are directed energy weapons that are that would essentially render an attacker incapable of continuing their attack. Current iterations of this technology are meant primarily for crowd-control applications and are too big and unwieldy to be used in a school. However, the basic premise might be something that could shape and inform research and development efforts to develop a system that could be deployed to secure schools (or for that matter, similarly “soft” targets). Here, I am referring to systems such as the Active Denial System (or ADS), which leverages millimeter wave technology. When the ADS is activated, its target feels an extremely intense heat sensation. This essentially triggers a reflexive response that would render an attacker totally unable to continue their violence. In fact, the response that people experience is to run away – as fast as is humanly possible.

• Second, there has been research on the potential of long-range acoustic devices (LRADs) to be used in the context of crowd dispersion. Imagine an audible but not overbearing sound that has the potential to render an attacker dizzy, nauseated, and unable to continue. Again, at present these devices appear to be too unwieldy to be deployed in a school context – but the concept merits further exploration.

• Third, malodorants (i.e., the worst smell you can possibly fathom) can have significant impact on an attacker's behavior. However, this particular category of non-lethal technology would be problematic to the extent that the odor could not be quickly and adequately removed once a particular threat is eliminated.

Law and Crime Essential Reads

How to Keep an Incel From Becoming a Sex Offender

Motions to Quash a Subpoena

• Finally, and something that seems to be among the most promising, and ready-to-deploy technologies are laser dazzlers that could potentially incapacitate a shooter for up to several minutes by disrupting their ability to see, and therefore drastically inhibiting their ability to aim. Those critical moments could give people time to run, to escape, or for police to respond with overwhelming force.

Some of these technologies are more developed than others, many of which have been assessed in military contexts – and no doubt, these will need to be carefully and thoughtfully addressed going forward. But I think that it is certainly time for us shift from the ideological tenor of the debates about how to make schools safer to consider emergent technologies that may ultimately provide pragmatic and scalable solutions. Most people that I talk to don’t want to live in a police state (I sure don’t), where every possible target is heavily guarded and fortified. We don’t want schools to take on the characteristics of prisons with armed and armored guards juxtaposed with teachers and students. But we most certainly want to find ways to protect our schools and public places.

Certainly, school shootings are exceedingly rare events. Some might argue that the funds required to properly secure our schools would place too much of a burden on an already struggling system. But if we think about this as a matter of National Security, it might give us a different economic frame of reference. In that case, the proposed solutions indeed could be implemented for reasonable costs. I can hardly think of a more critical infrastructure that needs to be protected.