Since the 1990s, a number of schools have installed metal detectors. A lot of schools don’t have them, mind you, but a lot of others do.

I remember the debate around them in the 90s. I remember people arguing that they shouldn’t be needed, that they’d inhibit the school experience, and so on. Others argued that whether they should be needed or not was irrelevant because we had to deal with what is and not what we’d like to be.

To some degree, this debate continues to this day.

In Florida, though, it seems a number of schools are taking that step and, shockingly, there isn’t that much pushback on it.

Some Florida schools are again heightening security amid rising threats of violence and weapons on campus.

Several are looking to protecting their perimeters.

Vero Beach High School in Indian River County has partnered with the Sheriff’s Office to place metal detectors at all its entrances, TC Palm reports. The school had been conducting checks at sporting events, but decided to expand the effort after a student brought a gun to school last week.

The Palm Beach County school district continues to add metal detectors at its high schools, too, with another four set to come on line within the next few weeks, WPTV reports. Police officials said they have found no weapons at the four schools already using the equipment.

But guns remain a serious concern among schools. A Broward County high school student was arrested Friday for bringing one to campus, WPTV reports.

Parents say they hope security goes beyond metal detectors. “Our kids should be the first priority. And we need to protect them with every resource that we have,” Vero Beach parent Kelly Stephens told WPEC.

Honestly, this is the correct response.

My son attended public school throughout his educational life. In elementary and middle school, he never saw a metal detector. In high school, though, he had to walk through one every day.

And yet, the metal detector years were also the years he enjoyed his school experience most. Why is that? Because kids are resilient and they’re not as put off by security measures as some parents want to believe.

After Parkland, there was talk about “hardening schools.” A lot of people, myself included, figure that our kids deserved better than to be left vulnerable to the predators in this world.

Hardening schools starts, at least in part, with metal detectors. It keeps kids from sneaking guns into the school in the first place, which is what a number of eventual school shooters did. Keeping them from doing that forces at least some change in plans, a change that might save lives.

Meanwhile, the kids don’t really even think that much about it.

In this case, it seems parents are understanding that, which is a good thing. I’m glad to see it.

No, it shouldn’t be necessary. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t see metal detectors anywhere except in the hands of some dude at the beach.

But we don’t live in a perfect world, we live in this one, and no one should be really bothered by security measures that don’t infringe on our rights.