Mass shootings at the nation's schools would be preventable if districts adopted the same safety mindset long used against fires, retired U.S. Army Ranger and former West Point psychology professor Lt. Col. Dave Grossman told Newsmax on Thursday, one day after a gunman opened fire at a Minneapolis Catholic church where children were gathered for a first-day-of-school Mass.
"It definitely could have been prevented," Grossman told Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "But we need to understand that not a single child has been killed by a school fire in over 70 years. Half the cost of the building goes into [meeting] the fire code. Just like we have fire sprinklers and fire extinguishers, we need the tools to defeat violence in our schools."
Gun violence could also be reduced in schools if leaders invested in protective measures and empowered their staff, Grossman added.
"Since Columbine [High School massacre], all of Utah has armed educators and Utah concealed carry," he said, adding that there has "never been" a child shot and killed in an American school where educators are armed.
"All of Florida, all of Texas, big chunks of other states across America have armed educators, so [there is] somebody in every school that's willing to be armed and trained in those schools," he noted.
He also called for policies that were mandated after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, to be implemented.
"Every door and every school [should] be shut and locked all the time," said Grossman, adding that schools should have laminate film on their windows and "somebody who can shoot back."
He further cautioned that the impact of school shootings is greater than the murder rate suggests because medical advances prevent more fatalities.
"Just like with adjusted dollars, we need medically adjusted murders. When we do that, it will transform the way we see the situation," he said.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.