A week after the Parkland shooting, people are asking how to fix it, meaning stop school shootings. There is a problem: the laser focus on guns is not how you prevent a school shooting.

For one thing, the kids who do the shooting are not the well-adjusted random kid who has a bad day. There are all kinds of signs that should have been caught by some responsible adult long before he was expelled from school. This shooting is one more example of systemic failure. This failure endangers our neighbors, our kids and us. And fixing this is about more than gun grabbing or Eddie Eagle gun safety classes.

Conversations like meeting with Trump and the students at the White House are a good start. But there is so much more that needs to be done to truly fix this.

Spilling out wrenching tales of lost lives and stolen security, students and parents appealed to President Donald Trump on Wednesday to set politics aside and protect America’s school children from the scourge of gun violence. Trump listened intently to the raw emotion and pledged action, including the possibility of arming teachers.

Whether or not you agree with the direction of the discussion, what we just saw was powerful: American citizens debating issues at the White House–right in front of the President and VP of the United States.

Raw and open dialogue like that makes us stronger as a nation.

— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) February 21, 2018

There is no quick fix. There are so many failures that contribute to these spree killings. I grew up in San Diego. Brenda Spencer was four years ahead of me. Before her spree killing. She was high, drunk and in a home she should have been removed from. And she was mentally ill with a sperm donor buying her a rifle. Again, it is not the gun. It is the system failing on every level. From the schools and social services to state governments gutting mental health services and family dysfunction. And a shooter who wants to go out in a blaze of glory with a media giving them all the attention.

So you want to fix the problem. Sheriff Israel? Well Sheriff, how about keeping students and staff safe and having your officers actually protect and serve? How about following up on reported threats, always? Having a mental health system that works? And make the schools more secure using technology and giving them the ability to expel and follow up with troubled students. Fix that first, then let’s talk guns. See something, say something only works if there is follow up. And Sheriff Israel and his department suck at that. We are told when we See Something to Say Something. The follow-up was crap. So put the damn donut down and do your job, dude. But that may just be me.

Noting that the questions like: how the hell did he get on campus without being stopped?

He came when he knew the gates would be open and set off a fire alarm that would dismantle a safety system, officials say. And the school resource officer, who is supposed to help protect students, may not have been on school grounds at the time.

So the school was protected by one officer on campus. That works as well as having the bank robber show up when the security guard goes on break. When there was a former student who was a known threat, where were the cops? We have a police car waiting for speeders by our middle school. Surely you can spare a car or two when you have a known threat. Nah, let’s go full Harry Potter and make the kids do all the heavy lifting.

An interesting thread about why we seem to fund extensive security perimeters everywhere but public schools.

It’s a good point. We do in other public buildings. Hell, I had to badge in and go through a metal detector even when I was working for the court. https://t.co/9hePgMkNdl

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 22, 2018