To prevent a potential active shooter from doing harm to the students and staff, a North Carolina school district has stocked up on AR-15 rifles as part of its back-to-school preparations with the help of the Madison County Sheriff's Office.
In a Facebook Live video streamed in June, Madison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood confirmed that they will be placing semiautomatic rifles in locked cases in six schools within the county. Only the School Resource Officers will have access to the gun and the gun's safety container. These containers will also have the ammunition and the tools for breaching barricaded doors.
Hardwood said that the decision was a difficult but necessary one following the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 kids and two teachers died at the hands of a school shooter. The sheriff said that he was "very distraught" by what happened and wanted to keep the schools safe.
"We've sometimes seen that having an armed deputy with a handgun isn't enough to stop these animals," the sheriff said, per KFOX. "That's why I've decided to arm all my school resource officers with an AR-15 rifle."
"Prepared as prepared can be"
Madison County Schools Superintendent Will Hoffman said that several meetings were undertaken between the law enforcement agency, the school officials, and the school lawyers to plan out updated measures to keep the school communities safer. The School Resource Officers have also been undergoing training with some of the instructors at the Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
The sheriff insisted that the officers should be "prepared as prepared can be" given that the Uvalda massacre turned for the worse because the police and the safety officers were not prepared. He said that the community cannot pretend the same tragedy will not happen in Madison County.
Aside from the guns, CBS News reported that the schools will have a panic system button connected to a central monitoring center. A week before classes begin, the Sheriff's Office will also conduct a live scenario training with the safety officers, the teachers as well as the emergency response group.
Madison County Schools are set to open classes on Monday, Aug. 22, 2022.
Arming schools, a controversial decision
The choice to have AR-15s on the school premises has been thumbed down by Dorothy Espelage, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. She has conducted studies on school safety for decades. Speaking with WLOS-TV, Espelage said that having rifles and ammunition in schools raises the risk of gun accidents.
On the other hand, a parent said that she has mixed opinions. While she wants the kids safe, it could be easy to break the lock of the safe for the AR-15. There have been previous cases of kids attempting to steal the school's rifles.
However, the sheriff said that the gun's container is secured and hidden in an undisclosed location, which means the children will not have any idea where it is.
