Safety first

It has been months in the coming, but the governor of Arkansas has signed off on the School Safety Commission’s final report. Dozens of people from all kinds of outfits were involved in this report, not including folks who gave testimony, and everybody involved should have the state’s thanks. School shootings aren’t somebody else’s problem — and haven’t been since Jonesboro.

There are all kinds of recommendations, and many of them call for money. Then there are the kinds of bullet-point recommendations that sound like they came from a committee. But that can be forgiven. Especially since this was all done for the common good. And bullet points with phrases like “implementation status” and “best practices for team composition and process” can’t hurt anybody.

But here is a recommendation from the committee that sticks out, like a diamond in the sand:

“Campuses should have an armed presence when staff and children are attending class or a major extracurricular activity.”

We never understood why it was okay to have armed guards at football games, patrolling the stands and waving metal-detector wands at the front gates, but for some reason those in 9 a.m. math classes didn’t need the same protection. This isn’t 1984. Or even 1994. The bad guys have figured out that the best way to kill as many people as possible is to find soft targets. Until now, schools have been soft targets. They shouldn’t be. Ever again.

Safety first.

And when the bad guys find other soft targets — and they will — the rest of us will address that when the time comes.