In the first 45 days of this year, our country has witnessed over a dozen firearms related incidents, including violent shootings, in what should be one of our safest and most treasured spaces — our schools. I was in Florida when this latest attack occurred, and I watched as families were once again panicked by this horrifying trend in our great country. As a cop, security professional, patriot, and first and foremost as a father and grandfather, I demand that we stop playing politics and act now to address this issue.

With 15 years of experience in law enforcement and 34 years in private security, I have trained countless individuals, businesses and organizations on how to face this increasingly dangerous world, and I see the solution to this epidemic at hand. It is a solution rooted in practices and technologies that already exist and only need to be applied to our schools. A system designed to prevent troubled individuals from “slipping through the cracks” paired with a set of in-school security protocols will pave the way for an end to this slaughter.

We already have the technology and the manpower available. We simply need to act now to address this issue before copycats exploit the vulnerabilities in our schools. Our children deserve an immediate response to this crisis.

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First, we need to ensure that known violent or troubled individuals in our schools don’t have access to guns. Disarming people with domestic violence or related allegations against them is already standard procedure for the police. Why not for our children? Officers reported for domestic violence or assault are stripped of their weapons immediately. Similarly, we should mandate that anyone enrolled in a school who is ever reported for violence or mental illness has their record sent to a database that checks if there are licensed guns in their homes. Those reports should be used to obtain warrants to legally remove those guns pending an investigation.

The FBI and local police dropped the ball in the Parkland shooting. This is a wake-up call that there is a grave failure in the effective dissemination of intelligence. Designating local officers to specifically investigate reported instances of student violence and mental illness, in cooperation with the FBI, teachers, and social workers, will ensure that more of these troubled individuals will not slip through the cracks. Everyone needs to work together to protect our children.

Second, schools must have mandatory security assessments to identify risk. The same way that fire departments examine all buildings for fire-doors and emergency exits, security professionals, in collaboration with police departments and school administrators, should evaluate school facilities to identify and address vulnerabilities. All schools should be equipped with tools that are already commonly available — door wedge technology can be easily used to barricade against an assailant and CCTV can be installed according to the security assessments’ recommendations.

Third, we need to utilize digital technology already in use in other sectors and implement it in our schools. Applications such as CopSync — for which I consulted for a couple of years — can enable instantaneous real-time communication during crisis scenarios. (CopSync declared bankruptcy last year, but many similar products remain on the market.) We should provide school personnel with this technology to increase and coordinate the response to an active shooter. These apps are available now and can greatly improve response time to attacks. Since Columbine, we’ve learned that school shooters are motivated to cause as much damage as quickly as possible. These attacks offer no room for a wait-and-negotiate approach. The responses to these attacks need to be immediate, and stress speed and coordination.

Fourth, we need to train all teachers and students in ABC (Avoid, Barricade, Confront). ABC is a widely accepted protocol employed to increase the odds of surviving an active shooter event. ABC teaches individuals to respond under pressure and take the correct steps to increase their odds of survival. Children and teachers will be ready to act decisively and know what to do for their safety.

Fifth, we should selectively and carefully arm school officials. Personnel who have the requisite skills, abilities, and training should be armed in a discreet and managed way. This doesn’t mean just handing every teacher a Glock and hoping for the best. This means allowing our teachers to choose to undergo crisis-response training and carry weapons they are confident using. Selectively arming school personnel will provide a deterrent to mass shooters and will also allow those on the ground, with firsthand information and in the thick of the incident, to take necessary and immediate action.

In the past we have seen our heroic teachers choose to act as human shields and take bullets to protect their students. We should give these heroes the chance to further protect lives by creating a system of controlled and concealed carry in our schools. My daughter, a New York City public school teacher, would do whatever she could to protect her students. She and all our teachers deserve the chance to do whatever they can to save lives.

We’ve already seen our teachers put their bodies on the line for their students. We should give those who desire to do so the choice and opportunity to volunteer and train to take on this grave and heroic responsibility.

Richard “Bo” Dietl was a decorated New York City police officer and detective for 16 years. He served as co-chairman of the National Crime Commission under President George H.W. Bush and chairman of the New York State Security Guard Advisory Council under governors George Pataki and Elliot Spitzer. Since 1985 he has been CEO of Beau Dietl & Associates, one of the premier investigative and security firms in the nation. The company has provided security assessments and training for individuals, corporations, schools and other institutions.

This post has been updated from a previous version.