Too many schools have grown less safe because adults surrendered authority, and no gun bill can restore the order they abandoned. Federal policy punished discipline, ideology replaced accountability, and “mental health” excused inaction. Most violence is not a mass shooting, but fights, threats, and assaults. Put adults in charge, officers in schools, treat crimes as crimes, address mental illness medically, rebuild connection, and enforce what works. Play “Two Truths and a Lie” and see what you know about keeping schools secure.
A. Many chronically violent students, including many school shooters, have diagnosable serious mental illness.
B. School safety in the United States is often framed through the lens of rare but devastating mass-casualty events. These tragedies demand attention, but they obscure the broader landscape of violence that students and teachers endure every single day.
C. Some firearm policies work to prevent school violence..
A. LIE! Much of what drives school disorder is plain unmanaged bad behavior, arising in a culture that pathologizes ordinary adolescent struggle. They have histories of cruelty, grievance, and escalating misconduct that adults all too often decline to confront. Treating every behavioral problem as a medical problem excuses misconduct and drains counselors away from students with genuine clinical needs, such as severe trauma, major depression, and emerging psychosis, who need them desperately.
B. TRUTH! The National Center for Education Statistics’ most recent data release in 2024, from the 2021–22 school year, showed that U.S. public schools recorded about 857,500 violent incidents and 479,500 nonviolent incidents, and 67% of schools reported at least one violent incident. “Violent incidents” in this survey include serious events (i.e., sexual assault, robbery) as well as more common threats and fights.
C. TRUTH! Securing your firearms from a troubled teenager is basic parenting and should be a legal responsibility. Honesty requires stating what the research shows. RAND reports supportive evidence that child-access-prevention laws, which target the unsecured home firearms that, per the U.S. Secret Service analysis of disrupted plots, many student attackers actually used, reduce firearm deaths and injuries among youth. Additionally, a peer-reviewed analysis of two decades of K–12 shooting data did find that more permissive state firearm laws and higher gun ownership were associated with higher rates of K–12 school shootings.
Bottom Line:
Schools are safe when adults are in charge, when rules are real, when crimes are crimes, when illness is treated, and when warning signs meet action instead of paperwork.
If we are serious about getting our schools under control, there is genuinely good news: None of this is beyond us. The playbook is written, the data are in, and states like Tennessee are already proving that seriousness works. What we need now is courage. Courage to discipline, to arrest, to commit, to treat, and to tell a generation of children the truth their souls are waiting to hear: You are loved, you are capable, the rules are real, and the adults are back.
Every parent wants their child safe at school. That standard is achievable, joyfully and unapologetically so, the moment we decide our children’s safety matters more than our politics.
To learn more, read the Policy Focus: Safe, Seen, and Supported: What Actually Keeps K–12 Schools Secure