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Perhaps a policeman at the door would have stopped him. Perhaps the police officer would have been the first victim.

Security offers some level of protection, but is not THE answer. There is no one answer, as much as we would like that to be the case.

Security can and will fail. Airports have more security than any school could hope to afford both in technology and manpower and yet breaches continue. At best, it forces the bad actor to move on to greener pastures. Take a person bent on carnage. You make schools too difficult. They take their carnage to the malls. Make the malls to difficult. They'll attack sporting events. You make that too difficult, they'll move on to museums, festivals, churches, etc.

The same goes for weapons. Ban one type of gun, they'll go to another. Ban all guns, they'll go to explosives, swords, poisons, vehicles, etc. The worst school massacre in the US (Bath School) was carried out without a firearm.

The only way to truly diminish (there's no way to eliminate them) instances of this nature is to attack the causes. Worse, there is no one cause. Sick culture? Check. Broken mental health system? Check. Bullies? Check. Breakdown of the family? Check. Malfunctioning justice system? Check. Media that grants instant fame? Check. Could go on until I had more checks than a bank.

To focus on any one as THE problem means not addressing all the others.

Two other things that seem to be lost in the media blitz. One is how rare these things are. They're horrible in their magnitude, but tiny in comparison to the many other bad things that happen. 20 lives taken by a madman are horrible. Thousands of lives lost a little at a time from gang violence, drunken driving, misuse of prescription drugs, etc.

The other is what we as individuals can do to, if not prevent these things from happening, at least minimize our chances from being involved. Be aware of those around you. Keep gear that isn't under your immediate control locked up. Speak up if you see warning signs from people.

The sad thing, beyond the incident itself, is that we as a nation will continue to ignore the root causes.
We will continue to raise our kids on a steady diet of media that glorifies senseless violence, thuggery, and self importance.
We will continue to teach them that it's all about them, that they are owed everything and be surprised when they act out when they don't get it.
We will continue to ignore mental health problems except to categorize and alienate and continue to treat the symptoms rather than the causes.
We will continue to allow people to bully and abuse others while removing any outlets for the victims to remedy the situation.

We have a sick society. The fixes aren't easy or straightforward. We got this way gradually.

Each time one of these tragedies happens, we ask why. And then we look for causes outside ourselves. We always fail to look at the causes from within.

On a micro scale, yes, the perpetrators are responsible. On the macro scale, we as a whole are responsible. Whether we are responsible directly by bullying people or ignoring our children in the pursuit of material goods or "finding ourselves" or indirectly when we see wrongs and fail to address them.