Will this become the new normal? Journalist Susan Demas of the Michigan Advance posted this remarkable commentary recently under the fitting headline category “Apocalypse watch”:
New West Michigan school designed with hiding spots in case of mass shooting
By Susan Demas
As Republicans continue to refuse to solve America’s gun problem, desperate parents are sending their kids off to school in bulletproof backpacks.
And now a West Michigan school district is taking even more extreme measures.
WTHR-TV in Indianapolis talked to Fruitport Schools Superintendent Bob Szymoniak about the $48 million renovations to the high school:
The design of the new sections includes subtle safe spaces that can be used to protect students in the event of a shooting, and long curved hallways that would offer protection too.
“To cut down on the sight lines if we have an active shooter in the building,” Szymoniak said.
By reducing the sight lines anyone with malicious intent would be unable to see the entire length of the hallway.
In what universe is this normal or acceptable?
We could actually try to solve the real problem of easy access to military-style rifles, like the AR-15 the shooter in Dayton, Ohio, recently used to kill at least nine and injuring at least 27 people in just 30 seconds before police arrived on the scene.
Or we could just continue to live in terror, as we’ve done since the Columbine school massacre in 1999, and spend millions making our schools prisons, including cockamamie GOP ideas like arming teachers.