Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said the Santa Fe High School shooting could possibly be blamed on the presence of too many doors on campus.
In comments to reporters on Friday afternoon, Patrick said:
Had there been one single entrance for every student, maybe he would have been stopped. Now that will take a lot of work and a lot of money, but maybe we need to do the work and do the money to protect children the best we can.
Patrick’s comments didn’t seem to be off-the-cuff, but were apparently well thought-out. He continued, “We have to look at the design of our schools moving forward, and retrofitting schools that are already built. There are too many entrances and too many exits to our over 8,000 campuses in Texas.”
In fact, Patrick also had an in-use design in mind. The Republican suggested schools be run more like office buildings. Patrick went on, “Maybe we need to look at limiting the entrance and exits into our schools so that we can have law enforcement looking at the people who come in one or two entrances. We’re going to have to be creative. We’re going to have to think out of the box.”
As it stands now, Patrick urged, it just wasn’t economically feasible to protect children who don’t attend schools fashioned in the manner of office complexes. He noted, “There are too many entrances and too many exits to our over 8,000 campuses in Texas. There aren’t enough people to put a guard at every entrance and exit.”
Such a task, Patrick claimed, would require the State of Texas to hire in excess of 40,000 additional security guards in order to cover each and every entrance and exit on each and every campus.
The one-term GOPer reiterated, “As a nation, we should look at the design of these schools right now.”
Patrick’s doors-removal comments were met with widespread confusion and mockery before being widely panned across the Lone Star State. The San Antonio Current referred to Patrick’s stance as “ass-backward logic” and accused the lieutenant governor of engaging in “contortions.”
In a blistering response, Patrick’s Democratic opponent in the 2018 election, Mike Collier, responded to the idea on Twitter in a series of posts. He wrote:
Re: #SanteFe Appoint a school safety czar now and empower him or her to secure schools immediately. Step two (NOW) a special session to implement, before school starts, a comprehensive strategy to assure school and public safety. Including sensible gun laws. Abbott and Patrick MUST pass legislation (special session) to protect our Texas children from mass murder. Round tables and retrofitting school doors are deceitful stall tactics, the work of cowards. Do your work before Election Day. Then Texans will vote.
[image via screengrab/CNN]
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