Ohio legislators are moving forward with a proposal aimed at protecting students from gunmen. They want to change the state building codes to allow schools to install barricades on classroom doors. Details from State Impact Ohio’s Mark Urycki
School shootings have become common enough that they’ve spawned a cottage industry that makes classroom barricades. Schools around Ohio have been buying different versions but when the Southwest Licking Local School District tried the state fire marshal ruled they were illegal. Now members of the Ohio House and Senate are backing a bill that asks the Ohio Board of Building and Standards to come up with guidelines that permit some kind of barricade.
House Sponsor Kristina Roegner of Hudson waves off concerns that such barricades could be a fire hazard.
"When you have a shooter in the building you’re probably not going to have a fire right at that point, right? The bill does say that it needs to have minimum steps so it can’t be a complex thing to install or take apart.”
Roegner says her own district, Hudson Schools, uses a doorstop device that can be opened with the pull of a pin. But the fire marshal and Standards Board wrote that even doorstop devices can illegally block exits.
How about attacking the problem with stricter gun controls? Roegner says evil doers will find a way.
“They get guns; if they didn’t have guns they’ll find bombs; if they didn’t have bombs, they’ll use pressure cookers. I mean they’ll find ways to hurt people. “
The Department of Homeland Security and other safety experts do recommend locking or blockading a door when an active shooter is in a building.