https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/school-shootings-are-...
Nothing drives an economy like fear.
The Culture of Fear - Barry Glassner
https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Minorities-Mic...
Perhaps we should. Companies exploiting peoples' irrational fears and inability to do math are huge part of the problem. It would be less bad (but still bad) if they only scammed people, selling school shooting protection charms or other magical items. But instead, they're selling ineffective solutions with bad side effects, taking away freedoms, creating stress and feelings of insecurity.
Few things irk me as much as people making money from hurting other people.
I've not seen a lot of that.. More at US Christmas markets.
At any rate, I view policing events in that fashion or China adding security guards for their knife attack problem as not actually the same as US schools. In most cases the perpetrator is an adult that is dropping out and hard to reach. The US is worried about youth going through their social integration system who become violent as a result and that it apparently doesn't catch deteriorating preemptively as much as other societies. Many arguments can be made as to why, i.e. a litigious society leads to little personal risk to address abnormal problems.
A child who goes to a US school and observes the precautions should become paranoid about trusting themselves and their friends not to go on a killing spree. A child going to a Chinese school should mostly be more afraid of a scarier world.
Many larger schools have their own police officers, because they have to. My fiance is a high school teacher and just out of her classes in the past 2 months she's had one student arrested and expelled for bringing a firearm to school and another for bringing nearly a pound of marijuana (in a state where it is illegal at the state level) to school. Earlier this year they had two students expelled for having sex in a classroom after school while filming part of it with one of their phones.
Even from 1998-2002 we had school police. We had multiple people dealing marijuana, MDMA, LSD, and probably other stuff I wasn't aware about. We had several students investigated pre 9/11 for threatening to deploy pipe bombs at the school, we had more than one overdose (all MDMA I think), I'd watch a girl in study center once or twice a month sit there and rub her face the desk or her binder with pupils the size of saucers, we had students drinking on school property in the middle of the day. We had at least one student that I know of on an ankle monitor for most of high school. If you went out for a sport you would be drug tested regularly, without notice, pulled out of class at random and people would occasionally fail. While we had students doing FFA and being volunteer junior firefighters after school we also had people with extensive juvenile records and children.
When I was in middle/high school 16-21 years ago you could buy drugs/pornography/bootleg cdr movies/alcohol/other things that were age restricted like ephedrine (we abused ephedrine so much I have no idea how I didn't have heart failure) in the hall or bathroom between classes just by walking up to any number of people. I've found talking to people this is not a unique experience and most of the same is still occurring in high schools right now.
Many schools across the country simply are not utopian dream lands. If I had kids, I'd be 100% fine with them being forced to have clear backpacks and I'd go a step further and suggest they only be allowed to and from their locker upon arrival/departure and not allowed between classes. It's one small step that considerably reduces the risk of a kid lugging a weapon, explosive device, non-personal use amounts of drugs. Sure, I could have hidden a small arsenal and a large quantity of drugs on my person between my hoodie and jnco jeans in high school but a clear (or no) backpack drastically reduces the likelihood of these things being taken to school.
Maybe the schools need to change, and kids need to be integrated into the real world, instead of being retained in relatively pretty prisons with bad food until they're adults.
In Pakistan the gender segregation is almost certainly a religious thing given Islam is the religion of 96% of the country. Segregation by gender is also found in masjids/mosques, this is a normal part of Islamic culture.
Comparing a religious custom in a predominately Islamic country to clear backpacks in American schools is wholly irrelevant.
To me the upsetting part is that these kids must feel unsafe / monitored. Which is exactly what they shouldn't go through in school, it's far from a good start in life.
But then again with all the school shootings I don't blame the security companies, it's a deep cultural/societal issue. It's similar to what happened in Europe in the last few years, now it's business as usual when soldiers in full gear + assault rifles patrol the streets in major cities or during big public events. It sucks but there isn't a perfect answer to the problem.