Health Researcher Says Kentucky Isn’t Doing Enough for School Safety through Senate Bill 1

Health Researcher Says Kentucky Is Not Doing Enough for School Safety through Senate Bill 1

The School Safety and Resiliency Act in Kentucky will beef up security through both hardening and softening measures, but health researcher Jagdish Khubchandani said that the lawmakers are missing a vital piece of child gun violence prevention.

In a recent article by health researcher Jagdish Khubchandani, “School Firearm Violence Prevention Practices and Policies: Functional or Folly?” he argues that while Kentucky’s Senate Bill 1 is beneficial, it has missed the mark.

Senate Bill 1, otherwise known as The School Safety and Resiliency Act, “will require every school to have intercoms, cameras and automatic locking doors at their main entrances, and locks on all their classroom doors by July 2022,” according to 89.3 WFPL.

The bill calls for both “hardening” and “softening” schools, “hardening” through physical security measures and “softening” through threat assessment teams and hiring more counselors. Many schools have already begun assessing their school security, and have taken the first steps toward meeting the requirements the bill put forth.

Khubchandani argues in his article that although the new bill meets two of the main ways school shootings by children can be prevented, the main form of prevention is child access prevention, something the bill does not have. Laws that include criminal liability for adults if their child shoots someone with a gun that was not properly stored is shown to significantly reduce child gun violence.

“The new safety bill in Kentucky is a good assortment of different things,” Khubchandani said. “But I hope [the state] can complement it with a stronger child access prevention law.”

He said that the society must decide whether they want to be proactive or reactive, and potentially alter the law.

About the Author

Kaitlyn DeHaven is the Associate Content Editor for the Infrastructure Solutions Group at 1105 Media.

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