On Oct. 4, 2024, Rockledge High School students cowered in classroom corners during a school lockdown. This was not a drill. A situation which had often been practiced in regular lockdown drills became a reality as a contingent of law enforcement officers conducted a full sweep of the school’s campus. The lockdown procedure would eventually end later that day with fearful students running to anxious parents to share emotional embraces, but not after police discovered something unthinkable. A firearm, capable of ending countless student and faculty lives and impacting many more, had been found on school grounds.
At Rockledge, the best possible outcome in an unsafe situation was secured: a dangerous weapon was found before it had the opportunity to inflict untold damage upon the Rockledge community. However, at many schools across the nation, the same cannot be said. For the communities of Uvalde, Sandy Hook, and Marjorie Stoneman-Douglas, the scars of tragedies will never fully heal.
The metal detectors being installed at schools across Brevard County, and now at West Shore, are a line of defense against tragedies. They provide a further assurance that weapons will not be tolerated, that an attempt to inflict harm against the student body would be a fruitless effort. They serve to more tightly weave the strong net of security which the school exhibits against an attacker or intruder. At first glance, the new metal detection systems may seem like a nuisance, but upon closer inspection, their protection against a school tragedy outweighs any slight annoyance they could bring…