Tipsheet

Why Does the White House Oppose 'Hardening' Schools?

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  June 01, 2022 10:25 AM

As Katie noted yesterday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated during her Tuesday press briefing that President Biden does not support the 'hardening' of schools as part of the conversations on anti-mass shooting solutions.  In this answer, it very much sounds like Jean-Pierre is ruling out beefed-up school safety as something Biden would be willing to consider.  You be the judge:  


She says that her boss does not believe in hardening schools, then strangely transitions to rote education-related talking points about funding the needs of teachers, which is not the point of this conversation (also, the 'under-funded schools' trope is especially dubious these days).  It could be that she's once again communicating poorly, perhaps necessitating a walk-back -- a Biden administration speciality.  Or he might be embracing a blinders-on fixation on gun control, at the exclusion of everything else, as the acceptable "solution" to America's mass shooting problem.  In my list of ideas to which I'm at least open, increasing school security featured prominently.  I'm not excited by the prospect of schools being transformed into fortresses, but having trained, armed security at least gives defenseless kids a chance if a demented person decides to show up on campus, bent on mayhem and death.

There was no 'good guy with a gun' at Robb Elementary as the Uvalde slaughter began, contra the official and wrong reports shared with the public for days.  It's impossible to know if things would have turned out differently if there had been someone there to confront the gunman, but it's certainly plausible that the outcome could have been much less horrific. Armed officers have thwarted and cut short such attacks before.  Nobody should pretend that any one-size-fits-all policy, or set of policies, will solve the issue.  The discussion should be about what's acceptable and potentially effective.  Why, then, would Biden shut down a key piece of what would have a chance of emerging as a bipartisan plan?  This point from a GOP operative is correct: Jean-Pierre's pronouncement is "not helpful" because 'hardening schools' is a "likely piece in any potential legislative package, and Biden’s team is blowing up negotiations they’re not even involved in."  Tenuous negotiations are indeed underway:

One Republican senator and one Democratic senator are hoping they can find some common ground on gun reforms that will garner enough Republican support to pass the 60-vote threshold in the Senate in the wake of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two adults dead.  Republican Senator John Cornyn and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy will meet virtually on Tuesday to "see if we can agree on a basic framework" about how to go forward on gun legislation proposals, according to an aide to Cornyn. An aide to Murphy confirmed the senator "is participating in tomorrow's meeting and will be holding meetings throughout the week." 

Also, in this answer over the long weekend, was Biden expanding the menu for possible gun bans to include one of the most prevalent and popular handguns in the country?


And why does he insist on repeating factually incorrect talking points in discussing the Second Amendment?  He can and should seek to clarify his points, and subject them to pushback, in an interview with a journalist. He hasn't sat for one in well over 100 days, dating back to early February.  One of the issues that bogs down constructive, post-massacre conversations about mitigation ideas is a lack of trust.  Many pro-gun rights Americans simply don't believe that modest steps or relatively minor "common sense" proposals are the endgame.  It's hard to blame them when you hear comments like Biden's 9mm statement above.  Relatedly, I'll leave you with Beto O'Rourke flip-flop-flipping back to a pro-confiscation position.  He was for taking away guns from law-abiding owners ("hell yes") back in 2019, before he was against it earlier this year ("not interested in taking anything away from anyone") -- and now we're back to this:


Again, it's hard to tell Second Amendment advocates that their suspicions are entirely unfounded when leading Democrats talk like this. It would also be nice if everyone's faith didn't keep getting undermined by an ever-shifting 'official' account of last week's events in Uvalde:

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