While the Broward County high schoolers continue their national media tour, we STILL haven’t even begun to discuss school security.
Sure, there have been a few mentions of arming teachers, but outside of that, has there been any serious debate on how to harden public schools? I seriously hope so, because while every media outlet and their mother has given air time to David Hogg and his band of underage national policy “experts,” there are some very bad people planning some very bad things.
On Monday, ISIS tried to attack Pine View High School --- IN ST. GEORGE UTAH!
This is a community with less than 100,000 people, famous for its proximity to Zion National Park and the location of Brigham Young’s winter home... Not exactly a hotbed for Islamic extremism.
The teenager arrived at school on Monday with a bomb he made at his home. After trying to detonate it inside the school, a malfunction caused the device to emit large amounts of smoke. The school was evacuated and --- thankfully --- no one was hurt.
Police searched the attacker's house and found the materials used to construct the bomb. They also found evidence that he had been researching and promoting ISIS.
As it turns out, none of this should have been a surprise.
The student had already been involved in two separate incidents where he made it clear he was an ISIS supporter. On one occasion, he took down the school’s American flag and replaced it with an ISIS flag. On another, he spray-painted “ISIS is coming” on the side of a building. Despite all that, officers said he was authorized to be on school grounds.
I kind of doubt you see Hogg talk about this today, and you probably won’t hear anyone else talk about it in the right context. But imagine if this attacker had attempted this with an AR-15. What if he pulled out the rifle, but it jammed?
Even if no one got hurt, that might have been the final straw that pushed this gun control debate over the edge. Media coverage would be blowing up, not over the circumstances surrounding the attack, but over the weapon used. That’s all you’d see today on every cable news station. It would be in every national paper.
If this attack involved a jammed gun versus a malfunctioning bomb --- this close to the Parkland shooting --- the Second Amendment would be hanging by a thread today.
Meanwhile, we refuse to talk about the ACTUAL problems.
Why did this student still have access to a school? Is supporting the most violent terror group in the world not cause for a mental evaluation? Was there no law enforcement investigation on this kid?
When will we get serious about finding out how to protect our schools from ALL threats?
Schools are incredibly soft targets and it’s now apparent that terrorists are taking notice. When ISIS attacked New York City five months ago by driving a truck down a bike path, the media talked about it --- for what, maybe a few days? Now, look what happens when an attack hits a school. It dominates the news for weeks and even starts debates on national policy.
You'd better believe very bad people are watching this. They’re taking notes. It’s time we stopped talking nonsense and got serious about what the ACTUAL problems are.
We got lucky on Monday, but our luck is quickly running out.
