I'd like to start this by saying that absolutely no one, contrary to what the anti-gunners claim, wants to see another massacre take place. I can't, but not because pro-gunners do. No, I'm pretty sure at least some anti-gunners get excited to find out there's been another mass killing.
And, if that's true, they're really not going to like the proposal that just showed up in an op-ed.
See, my thinking is that they love these massacres because it lets them pretend they've got the moral high ground by using the dead bodies of children as soapboxes to try and push for restrictions to basic civil liberties protected by the Constitution, a liberty explicitly protected as a means of fending off tyranny.
So they don't have the moral high ground, but they want people to think that they do.
Which is why I expect them to absolutely hate this proposal, originally from an op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Better design of public gathering spaces can reduce risk
No serious society eliminates risk entirely. But serious societies reduce risk through design, standards and transparency.
America did not cut highway fatalities by banning cars. It engineered safer roads, required seat belts, mandated crash testing and standardized reporting. Deaths per mile driven fell dramatically. The lesson is simple: structure matters.
We can apply the same logic to public safety.
First, adopt violence-resilient design standards for public gathering places — proportionate to risk. Schools should have controlled entry points, hardened glass, secure interior doors and multidisciplinary threat-assessment teams. High-density venues such as bars and nightclubs — where alcohol, crowds and late hours elevate volatility — should meet more stringent standards than low-traffic facilities such as libraries. Security should be tiered, not one-size-fits-all.
This is not militarization. It is risk management. Building codes already reflect fire danger and earthquake exposure. Insurance companies already price risk. Public safety deserves the same structural seriousness.
These measures require investment. Just as ADA compliance and highway safety standards required capital and adjustment, violence-resilient design would as well. But the cost of inaction is measured in lives and eroded public trust. Safer public spaces also carry economic benefit: when citizens feel secure, they gather, attend events, support local businesses and participate in civic life. Safety is not merely a moral imperative — it is an economic asset.
Now, understand that I'm not a fan of the government telling private parties what they have to do on their own property. I mean, I'm vehemently against zoning laws, for crying out loud, or anything that tells me what I can and can't do with the land I own, so mandates as to what levels of security they must put in place are always going to be problematic for me.
But while bars and malls are private property that just happens to be open to the public, schools and other publicly-owned spaces aren't. Mandating what has to be done there, and helping to fund it via grants, is entirely doable.
And providing grants and strong encouragement, potentially even to the point of holding them liable should they fail to implement rational security steps, would be a slightly different thing in my mind. You don't have to do it, but you're responsible for the consequences if you don't.
The author also proposes mandatory reporting standards, combined with publicly available dashboards, that would allow people to see for themselves what is going on, where it's happening, and then maybe what to do about it.
That part seems entirely rational.
Anti-gunners, though, will hate it.
See, when we talk about hardening schools, they lose their minds. They act like we're militarizing the schools and traumatizing generations yet to come, but when my son suddenly had to go through a metal detector to get into his high school--which also had only two points of entry or egress during school hours, except in an emergency--it didn't faze him. Most kids are resilient and not traumatized by things like that unless they're conditioned to be traumatized.
As a result, too many schools are sitting ducks, all because anti-gunners can't handle anything other than them getting their way and nothing else. They don't care about security, only gun control.
Which is why I can't really believe they don't want to see more mass killings going forward. If they were serious about ending them, they'd still push for gun control, but they'd also take whatever other steps they could get.
