The tragedy at Evergreen High School reminds us that even this country’s most idyllic communities — from our mountain towns to the quaint cities on the plains — must prepare for violence in their schools. School shootings have never been only an inner-city problem, and to believe otherwise is to ignore Colorado’s tragic history.

We were dismayed to learn that security at Evergreen High School may not have been a priority because of the school’s location about an hour west of Denver in the forested foothills of Jefferson County.

Mental illness and radicalization can occur anywhere, especially in a society connected seamlessly online to every type of content imaginable.

Every school in this state needs a dedicated resource officer who can respond immediately to a threat on campus.

Seconds matter in a shooting, and two students from Evergreen High School are in the hospital fighting for their lives. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputies responded quickly to the shooting but even that was unable to prevent tragedy.

The evening before the shooting at Evergreen High School, the school’s principal told concerned parents that a school resource officer had been “deprioritized” for Jefferson County’s mountain schools. The school’s full-time deputy was on medical leave, and the contract with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office has a deputy on campus “as staffing allows.” At the time of the shooting, the officer assigned to the campus was responding to a call off campus.

Every Colorado school needs an armed officer on campus during school hours. We are glad the Jefferson County School District will increase security before students return, and a similar plan should be put in place at every school in the state.

School violence has struck a charter school in the suburban community of Highlands Ranch where a road is now named for the hero — Kendrick Castillo — who saved his classmates but died. A few miles north at Arapahoe County High School in Littleton, Claire Davis was shot and killed by one of her classmates. Two teachers were shot and injured in the middle of Denver at East High School, and another student was shot and killed in the school’s parking lot a few weeks earlier.

But small towns, rural communities and the mountains are not immune. In 2006, a gunman took students hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, about a half-hour drive from Evergreen on twisting mountain roads. Emily Keyes was shot and killed.

We understand having law enforcement in every school in this state is a challenge financially and logistically, but in the face of yet another school shooting, we don’t see another option.

Americans can no longer be complacent. Our schools are not safe, and while locking down Evergreen quickly undoubtedly saved lives, we know that having a trained police officer on campus reduces the response time to seconds.

The teenager who shot two classmates and then killed himself last week had been active online in what experts describe as a new nihilism — the belief that life is meaningless — combined with a twisted desire to destroy society.

The teen’s social media accounts contained antisemitic and white supremacist posts and glorified other school shooters. According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the teen had been “radicalized through an extremist network.”

The only response is to harden our schools and protect as many students as possible. Of course, statistically, it is still unlikely that a student will be harmed in an act of violence on campus. The riskiest part of a student’s day is still apt to be their drive home.

But just as we require our children to ride in car seats, wear seatbelts and often buy them their first cars with airbags and other safety features, so too must we make schools as safe as possible.

We pray the victims of this shooting — 18-year-old Matthew Silverstone, and a second student who has not been identified at the behest of his family — survive and thrive.

And we pray that the next time someone targets our schools with violence that they are met by a show of force from law enforcement that protects innocent life.

No place is immune from school violence, a lesson we thought Colorado learned long ago when 12 students and a teacher were killed at Columbine High School.

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