Ted Cruz’s ‘One Door’ Plan for Schools Is Possibly the Worst Idea I’ve Ever Heard

Among the never-ending parade of “thoughts and prayers” (and the new iteration, “horrified and heartbroken”) coming from lawmakers following the devastating mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Ted Cruz stepped up to offer one of the most absurd propositions I’ve ever heard.

During an appearance on Fox News, Cruz brought up legislation that he introduced back in 2013 to spend $300 million to “harden” schools. As he sees it, schools need things like bulletproof glass and armed police officers. Cruz also emphasized what he saw as an important feature: to only have one door leading in and out of schools.

“Don’t have all of these unlocked back doors. Have one door into and out of the school. And have that one door, armed police officers at that door,” Cruz said, insisting that if that if his bill had passed, “when that psychopath arrived, the armed police officers could’ve taken him out, and we’d have 19 children and two teachers still alive.”

There’s just so much wrong here, starting, perhaps, with the fact that an armed school district police officer did reportedly confront the shooter outside of the school and was shot and incapacitated. There are also reports that police were on the scene for 40 minutes to an hour and not only refused to enter the school to stop the shooter while parents begged them to act, but were potentially responsible for keeping the shooter “contained” in the classroom where he murdered those 19 children and two teachers. But sure, let’s hire more armed officers to also do nothing and barricade dangerous people inside these single-entrance-and-exit schools.

Moreover, having a single point of entry at schools that house hundreds or even thousands of students and staff is a safety nightmare, both in terms of shootings as well as pretty much any other emergency you can think of.

Republicans—and specifically Ted Cruz—will really propose removing doors from schools before they’ll even consider enacting anything resembling sensible gun law reform.

(image: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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