I heard someone on the radio suggest that school security guards, already “embedded” with the faculty, should be armed so that when a school shooting starts they can respond immediately instead of waiting for the police. I have a vague repulsion to militarization of schools, and am underimpressed by a solution that aims to curtail, rather than prevent, school shootings.

Instead, how about a backpack ban?

If you haven’t been in a school for a while, you may not realize that over the past twenty years students have been carrying increasingly huge backpacks filled with textbooks, notebooks, and supplies. Heavy packs can cause neck, shoulder, and back pain, with the potential for permanent damage.

Double-depth students also create hallway traffic gridlock between classes, unintentionally clear horizontal surfaces in classrooms, and smack bystanders when they turn or swivel abruptly.

Reducing the need for backpacks–for the above reasons, not due to fear of hidden firearms–has been a project at my sons’ public high school since before the younger one graduated, more than four years ago. It is a typical progressive, well-funded, East Coast public HS, with biology-based sex ed, a let-adolescents-sleep start time, and open campus. The plan: Purchase extra “classroom sets” of new textbooks, allowing students to leave their own books at home, drastically reducing the weight and size of their luggables.

To reduce the backpack size even more, we could use technology. Many schools already have carts of laptops for classroom use. The last HS in which I had a permanent assignment took that idea farther: Every student received a laptop during freshman year, and used it to access class notes, homework, and announcements, and to communicate with teachers and administrators, for all four years. This school was not at all progressive, with traditional rote teaching methods and a 7:30 AM start time.

The less paper we generate, the fewer 3″ binders students need to carry.

Combining these, I picture most students strolling into school carrying a slim computer case and maybe a lunchbox. The kid bringing the automatic weapons and spare magazines would really stand out.

That leaves athletic duffel bags and band instruments. Let’s have the jocks stow their duffel bags in the gym locker room, lined up and unzipped for coach staff inspection. That would air them out, too. Hey, I was a hockey mom.

The band kids are demographically less suspect in my mind, but to eliminate all chances, we should think of something. Transparent cases? We’d also have to replace the lockers with cubbies, which is a space- and cost-saver that is easily accomplished.

Even if we ban all guns tomorrow–and we won’t, the US is not Australia–there are tons here already. We can revert to Wild West style justice, or we can aim for a civil society that doesn’t fetishize violence.