Best For:
Individuals sick of the “mass shooting at a school” headline, advocacy groups, investigative journalists, seekers of change in legislation, and survivors of institutional failure.
The Vault:
• The Predator Paradox: Proponents of arming staff ignore that educators already run the risk of being part of a demographic with documented rates of physical and sexual misconduct against minors.
• The Myth: Research confirms media does not cause mass shootings; Japan and South Korea typically consume more violent media than the U.S. Yet, they have near-zero school shooting incidents.
• Security Theater Failure: Since Columbine, billions of dollars have been spent on bulletproof glass and clear backpacks, yet the shooting rate has quadrupled. Hardening works against outsiders, but it is useless against the “insider” student.
The United States #1 Issue:
We have spent way too many years pretending that the solution to school violence is a matter of architecture and armor. Since the gunfire stopped raining down on the commons at Kent State, the national response has somehow devolved into a multi-billion dollar “Security Theater.” This treats the children of this country like targets and our schools like bunkers inside the modern day war zone.
To truly honor the history of this day, we must look just beyond the metal detectors and armed resource officers to confront the uncomfortable, systemic rot just below the surface.
This journal is a deep dive into the data of school shootings from 1970 to 2026. I am aiming at shedding light on why arming teachers is a predator’s dream, tactical “hardening” fails against the insider shooter, and how the only true path to safety lies in a radical new era of parental accountability and behavioral intervention.
Kent State – 1970:
Fifty-six years ago, on May 4, 1970, the world stood still. Four students at Kent State University all unarmed, protesting, and seeking a voice, were shot dead by the Ohio National Guard. It was a moment of national fracture that triggered the only nationwide student strike in U.S. history.
Today, is Monday, May 4, 2026, and the United States citizens no longer stop when our news outlets show a new school shooting in the headlines. We live in a landscape where the “shock” of school violence has been replaced by a grim, repetitive statistical drumbeat.
We have moved from a society horrified by a near singular tragedy to one that is increasingly callous, disconnected, and armored against the next inevitable headline. For an Ohioan today, “May the Fourth” isn’t a sci-fi celebration; it’s an anniversary of blood on concrete and a reminder that for over half a century, the target has simply moved from university activists to now include all levels of education including toddlers in preschools.
In Memoriam – The Kent State Four and the Wounded:
At 12:24 p.m. today, the Victory Bell rang at the Kent State Commons. We do not just honor a date; we honor students who were robbed of their futures by the very authority figures tasked with their safety.
- Allison Krause (19): An honors student who believed “Flowers are better than bullets.“
- Jeffrey Miller (20): Instantly lost his life, while standing over 250 feet away from the Guard line.
- Sandra Scheuer (20): An honors student walking to a speech therapy class; she wasn’t even part of the protest.
- William Schroeder (19): An Eagle Scout and ROTC student caught in the crossfire while walking between classes.
We also remember the survivors:
Alan Canfora, John Cleary, Thomas Grace, Dean Kahler (paralyzed), Joseph Lewis, Donald Mackenzie, James Russell, Robert Stamps, and Douglas Wrentmore. Their lives were some of the first pieces of evidence from a system that chooses tactical escalation over the preservation of student life.
The Evolution of the Target:
The scope of this crisis is now the growing death and destruction total. In 1970, mass violence on campus was a political anomaly.
As of April 30th, 2026, there have already been 134 mass shootings in the U.S. this year a violent epidemic that bleeds directly into our classrooms. In 2025, there were 233 K-12 incidents and 64 higher education shootings.
The callousness setting into our national psyche is a survival mechanism against an explosion of the frequency in school shootings, We have normalized the idea that a child in school needs a bulletproof insert in their backpack. This is the same progressive rot moving through every level of education.
While the demographics of perpetrators are always shifting with university shooters often being older and motivated by different grievances; the mechanical failure is identical: the presence of a firearm where it should never have been.
The Myth of the Screen vs. the Reality of a Lock:
Blaming violence in video games, books, movies, or other violent media is a 56-year-old deflection. The facts around the causes has remained the same: there is no causal link between media and criminal violence.
If you look at countries like Japan and South Korea who consume more violent media than the U.S. but have near-zero school shootings. You see the variable actually exists when you look at the reality of the unsecured firearm.
Roughly 80% of K-12 shooters obtain the weapons they go on to use in school shootings from the home they live in or the home of a family member. This is a fundamental breach of the expectations that exists inside the parent-child relationship. The parent is supposed to be fully responsible for their child’s safety.
If a gun case is locked but a child knows where the key is, or if the safe lacks multi-point biometric logs, that lock might as well not exist. To suggest a child doesn’t know how to use a key is a lethal misunderstanding. The year 2026 seems to be one that aims to mark a turning point where “parental neglect” in school shootings is being reclassified as Second-Degree Murder.
Charging parents who are “willfully blind” to their child’s crisis and access to firearms as seen in the landmark cases in Michigan and Georgia. This is the only policy move currently working at shifting the needle.
The Lethal Power Imbalance – Sexual Misconduct and the Armed Teacher:
The people who wish to arm teachers clearly ignore the reality of the creepy male teacher being armed. Handing a gun to school staff doesn’t just create a “shield,” it creates a lethal power imbalance in a demographic that already proves a documented risk.
Statistics consistently show that school staff and educators are responsible for high rates of physical and sexual misconduct against minors. So if we go and hand them a firearm, are we not potentially arming predators? This essentially hands children over to the armed predator to have an even easier access point.
Congratulations!! Under this proposal the students who were already vulnerable to sexual abuse at school now face an authority figure who is not only a gatekeeper to their education but is also equipped with lethal force. This makes reporting abuse or resisting a predator nearly impossible.
To further expand black and brown students, who already face disproportionate force and perceived-threat bias from staff, an armed protector is just another source of violence. Hardening a school doesn’t fix a predator; it just makes them more dangerous.
Schools As Security Theaters Our Aftermath of The Columbine Legacy:
Columbine (1999) birthed the multi-billion dollar “security theater” industry. We’ve spent decades on bulletproof glass, back-pack bullet shields, metal detectors, clear backpacks, and more. Still, the shooting rate has quadrupled.
Hardening a building doesn’t work against a shooter that’s an “insider.” If the student already has the code and knows which doors don’t latch how do these things work? The short answer is they don’t. If the student knows the code and the lockdown spot because they sat through the same drill, the theater isn’t just useless… it becomes a roadmap for the shooter.
94% of shooters share their intent beforehand through “leakage.” Mandatory peer learning classes that teach students to “spy” on one another often backfire, creating suspicion rather than support.
The real solution is Behavioral Threat Assessment, identifying the “isolated loner” who is actually a threat and providing intervention before the plan turns into action. It another means of treating suicidality as the emergency. This phenomenon affects nearly 100% of university shooters. These shootings are typically driven by a final act of self-destruction.
Reclaiming Our Freedom:
To be truly free is to be able to learn without being afraid there’s a target on your back. The data in 2026 shows that the only path forward is Accountability.
We must hold gun owning parents and other family members strictly liable for their weapons. While we aim at treatment for students who are self-isolating and fall under other risky-demographics as an emergency.
I hope you took a moment today to honor Kent State. The way we continue to honor the victims of these senseless acts is to stop treating our schools and universities like war zones; we need to start treating them like the learning institutions and communities they actually are.
We have the statistics and the data from the last 56-years.
We just need the guts to act on them.
TLDR:
The “Security Theater” our learning institutions have become has failed and is still failing to stop the growth of school shootings since 1970. Arming staff introduces the risk of errors and creates a lethal power imbalance for students already vulnerable to sexual abuse and unfair bias.
The only evidence-based solutions in 2026 are holding parents criminally liable for unsecured weapons and utilizing Behavioral Threat Assessments to identify “leakage” before a student reaches the moment they place their finger on the trigger.
Leave a Reply