by Stephen E. Wright

Created on: April 25, 2008

A responsible parent has to plan for the unthinkable, no matter how offensive the unthinkable is. Because too many children have already died, and will continue to die, because parents refuse to face the issues and honestly debate ALL of the solutions.

As parents we have to face difficult issues and make difficult choices. It might be telling a friend you won't leave your child with them until their firearms are properly secured or disposed of, or a rule that your child can't go to a house where the parents allow unsupervised trampoline play. We'd rather avoid these issues, but we can't. Because facing up to the realities of our children's lives and making decisions to keep them safe came with the territory when we brought them kicking and screaming into the world.

Which makes it unthinkable that some parents are willing to let their options be limited by the political agendas of others. They allow intelligent debate over how to protect the lives of children to be suppressed by political dogma. It may be easier to avoid difficult decisions by simply yielding to politically correct rhetoric, but can we afford this luxury when it comes to the lives of our sons and daughters?

Three days a week I leave my precious little girl at Pre School in a room gaudily decorated with crayon drawings on construction paper and smelling of paste and Playdoh. I revel for a moment in watching so many bright and happy children. But how can I know that a monster such as appeared at Virginia Tech, Columbine, or the school in Breslan, Russia, won't walk in five minutes after I leave? As I walk away my only comfort is the fact that school mass murders are extremely rare.

So I leave the most precious part of my life unguarded, hoping the unthinkable doesn't happen to my child, but knowing it will happen eventually somewhere. If my bank announced that my money would be left in an unguarded place because the thought of fighting off an armed criminal is distasteful I would change banks. But unguarded schools are the norm, not the exception.

And the memorials for Columbine, Virginia Tech, NIU, and so many others, are the result.

Since we can't change human nature or eliminate all psychopaths, what can we do to reduce the number of memorials built?

1. More police officers in schools: This is unarguably the best choice. But at $100k yearly per officer to put 5 police officers at each of the 84,000 U.S. public schools would not be possible. And given the financial needs of schools for academics,

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