Mass surveillance in schools won’t prevent mass shootings

Administrators at Oak Hill High School in Fayette County, West Virginia, are attuned to potential violence.

If a student scrawls a threat on the bathroom wall about shooting someone, which happens in schools on occasion, staff will set up a mobile unit of metal detectors in the school’s yellow-brick entrance way. Since April, though, the metal detectors have been replaced by slimmer-looking scanners that use ultralow frequency magnetic fields to scan students’ bags and pockets for weapons.