Soft Targets:Conclusion

Personally, schools and education are emotionally tied to every citizen's experiences. They are vital infrastructure that helps the United States maintain its global edge. Unfortunately, as regularly unguarded and intentionally open buildings with poor funding and diverse populations, they also make excellent targets for terrorist attacks. Perpetrators of these attacks may include enemies both foreign and domestic, lone gunmen and global terrorist franchises, using firearms, improvised explosive devices, and military grade munitions. The sheer diversity of attack scenarios makes planning quite difficult.

School administrators, students, parents, and lawmakers need not lose heart. The chance of a child dying in a terror attack at school is less then 1 in 6 million, most attacks do not occur in the United States, and when they do, the perpetrator is typically a disgruntled individual, not an al-Qaeda operative. Furthermore, government agenceis including the United States Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Education recognize the threat and change, though slow, is occurring. Schools and districts are devising emergency response plans, although as seen at Chula Vista, such plans may not actually be useful yet. Tragedies such as Ma'alot, Columbine, Beslan, and the September 11, 2001 attacks have permanently altered the collective psyche of the nation, and with modest effort, schools will prepare for threats from inside, outside, and worldwide, and hopefully postpone, or at least mitigate, the inevitable terrorist attack.