There has been heartening involvement by our youth and fruitful community discussions here and throughout the country since the Parkland school shooting tragedy. The nation has reached a new level of determination to end school tragedies. It’s just as clear there are people – particularly in the political and media arenas – who are using our youth to manufacture outrage against the NRA and gun owners.

The political opportunism seems to conveniently exempt the deeper issues that must be solved to make our schools safe again.

Where is the outrage and where are the politically engineered demonstrations over the security lapses and incompetence by the sheriff’s office and FBI that led to the Parkland tragedy?

Where is the outrage over the failure – over a period of years – to coordinate mental health community warnings and school behavioral problems of the shooter with a plan to keep him from being near the grounds?

Where is the outrage over a Hollywood community – with elaborate security details and gun protection of their own – that mass produces video games and excessively violent films that dehumanize the value of human life?

To say the problem is as simple as the guns used in these tragedies is to say illegal drug problems can be solved by simply banning certain drugs. How has that worked? There are gun laws to prevent these tragedies if properly executed.

Existing background checks need to be more thorough and there needs to be better networking regarding them between law enforcement and school communities. There needs to be greater coordination and sharing of mental health information by the psychology, counseling, school and law enforcement community. And people with mental health issues need to be channeled into treatment.

Most of these shooting tragedies have been committed by people who had known mental health issues and should not have been near those schools. Access limits to schools – in gun-free zones – need to be dramatically increased. There are metal detectors at baseball stadiums and airports, but none at many of our schools, where children and adults are sitting ducks.

The role and expectations of security guards and school resource officers need to be radically transformed. While we are not comfortable arming teachers, those officers should be armed and given the authority to confront anyone coming near a school entrance and shoot if necessary.

Who those people are may need to change. Perhaps it is part of the National Guard duty portfolio. Perhaps active military personnel should be ending their deployment with a year at a school. Perhaps retired but healthy military personnel should be doing these duties.

There are plenty of gun laws that the political agenda pushers will not acknowledge have not been correctly enforced.

Rather than push an agenda and reduce Second Amendment rights – actions with little record of success – let’s answer the problem with greater school security and more vigilant enforcement of background checks and mental health situations.

Our federal government, which spends millions of dollars frivolously everyday, should be funding security protection in every school.

Our mental health community, teachers and school counselors should be empowered to remove habitual bad acters and bullies – cyber and otherwise – from our schools. Law enforcement and school and medical professionals may now be afraid to act decisively in these situations out of fear of public backlash from mental health advocacy groups. This must change.

Sadly, schools now must be treated like other major public gathering places, with detection and protection plans to match.

In our region’s schools today may be the child who becomes the doctor who cures cancer, finds a practical alternative to the fuel that drives our cars or develops the knowledge and diplomatic ability to bring lasting peace among all countries in this world.

Whether they are capable of that should be a matter of aptitude and attitude. Their ability to reach their fullest learning potential should not be threatened or extinguished by violence in their school.

We may not agree with the overriding content of the approach, but the kids are definitely correct: They deserve a better plan to protect them from violent tragedy in school than we are currently providing.