Then they will find some other means to do their thing. School buses? Malls? Day cares? The list is endless. Not to mention school shootings are far from the only form of mass murder - movie theaters recently too.
Unless you are ready to sign up for a fortified, bunkered America in all facets, "security" is not a solution to this problem. The vulnerable surface area is all public spaces.
I'd be much, much more concerned about the state of mental health care in this country. No one in their right mind goes and shoots children, nor a theater full of movie-goers - these aren't crimes of opportunity, they are indicative of severe mental disturbance.
Inevitably when tragedies like this come up we get into a big fight about gun control and then forget it ever happened. So rarely do we see any real discussion about preventing someone from seeking out the gun in the first place.
As for gun control, it's really not possible as you suggest. There are almost 300 million guns in the country. I wouldn't want to be the guy rounding them up.
And what about that story that in 2011 there have been 85 bullets shot during the whole year by the police, while in US the police has shot one person alone with that many bullets. Surely the easy access to guns, and to automated guns for the police, has made this that much more possible? And that it also created a culture where if someone just pisses you off enough, you're then very likely to just go and shoot them?
Yes, treating our schools like we treat our prisons is a great paradigm to adopt for our educational system.
Schools don't need armed guards. That is kind of ridiculous for every school and a person on a mass murder mission with the element of surprise is very likely to be able to take out a single armed guard before moving on to anybody else. Two or more armed guards is a massive expense especially for small schools. Plus if you put tens (hundreds?) of thousands of armed guards into schools across the country that is likely to bring its own problems too.
Absolutely locked down perimeters have their own problems and still don't help when someone is buzzed in on pretext - "I've got a package to deliver..."
Edit to add: Was very tempted to vote you down for idiocy/wrongness but managed to resist as this is HN and wrongness is not the proper criteria for downvotes.
1) The way our prison system works. It makes people worse. It makes them better criminals. It removes much of their opportunity to get better (try getting a decent job as a felon). It creates desperation. 2) the way we treat mental illness. By that I mean it is demonized and ignored. Does health insurance even cover mental health exams or treatments? Probably not basic coverage 3) Disparity of wealth. In the town I live in there are people living in absolute poverty and people driving around in lamborghinis and million dollar churches. The cost of that car could feed 50 people for a year.
In thiscase there is no telling what the root cause was yet. I suspect a case of someone just losing it.
The Clackamas shooting was a perfect example of an incident that gun control likely would've prevented. It was not premeditated, it was a bad kid on a very bad day that found a gun easily. If he didn't find it, I think it's safe to wager he wouldn't have done it.
http://www.murderuk.com/mass_murderers.html
Other attacks have occurred at schools without guns including this one with a machete that resulted in injuries but no deaths: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/8/news....
I would suggest that perhaps there is also a societal issue in the US compared to Britain causing these things (in addition to the affect of the larger population) but the most important aspect may be the greater availability of firearms that gives opportunity to people that may not carry out the act if they need time and preparation AND it greatly increases the lethality of attacks that do take place.
Note this excludes terrorism where numerous incidents have had a bigger death toll but those planned coordinated attacks and I think a different category from the sort of incident today.