It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. This maxim has applied these past two weeks in the South Butler School District, which is considering the placement of metal detectors at school entrances following two recent incidents that alarmed parents.

This is long overdue. The district is one of the few in the region that doesn’t have detectors — which can locate knives, guns or other weapons inside the items students are carrying — in every school. Tamara Finucan, who has a child in each of the district’s four schools, started a petition last week on change.org in response to a Jan. 7 incident during which Knoch High School student Jason Bowen is seen in a Snapchat video firing an AK-style weapon with the caption “Training for prom walk.” In a 2018 Instagram post, Bowen is alleged to be giving a thumbs up to a newspaper clipping on the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut, which claimed the lives of 20 elementary school children and six staff members.

This week, another incident rattled parents after a local middle school student was questioned about a Snapchat photo of two shotguns and a knife with the caption “Can’t wait until after school.” Although parents could breathe a sigh of relief after this incident appeared to relate to hunting and was merely an example of bad timing on the student’s part, the need for metal detectors at South Butler schools makes itself clear.

In the 20 years since the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, more than 200 people have been killed and numerous others have been injured during approximately 235 school shootings — which averages to about 11 incidents per year. While opinions on solutions may vary from community to community across the nation, installing metal detectors at schools seems to be a no-brainer.

The 1,400 people who signed Finucan’s petition — as of Wednesday night — would likely agree. Finucan was correct when she told the South Butler School District’s board at a meeting this week that there is no 100 percent effective tool in preventing an active shooter situation at a school. But, as she pointed out, if detectors can weed out just one weapon or deter one student from bringing a weapon to school, the return would be greater than the investment.

In this day and age — and in a nation boasting such horrific statistics — it seems negligible that any school anywhere would not make such an investment. Superintendent David Foley noted that the district will also soon undergo a threat assessment to evaluate facilities’ safety plans, means of collaborating with law enforcement, communications systems and mental health support. He said that the district could be awarded grants to pay for the metal detectors, but that he would recommend installing the devices even if the district did not receive grant money.

We agree with all of the aforementioned initiatives.