The efforts envisioned by the STOP School Violence Act are grounded in what works. Studies indicate that in the vast majority of school shootings, at least one person had information that the shooter was thinking about the attack. Dedicating a funding stream for the sole purpose of creating safe and secure lines of communication and organizing the resulting tips into actionable information would be a real step toward reducing these tragedies. We must better empower school officials, law enforcement, parents and concerned family members to communicate effectively with one another and take action on such information.

Preventing school shootings is our shared responsibility as a country, and this fact is reflected in the taxpayer dollars being used to finance the STOP School Violence Act. But this law also recognizes the fundamental truth that, as Ryan Petty, father of Parkland victim Alaina Petty, said to the Senate Judiciary Committee, “where we really stop the next killer is in our homes, in our communities,” by directing the funds to the discretion of America’s towns and communities.