Mahoning Valley - After the Georgia school shooting, U.S. Senator and Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance called school shootings a "fact of life," and called for greater security measures to make schools "hard targets." That's a familiar theme whenever one of these shootings happens. But is it that simple?

21 news spoke to  a two nationally-recognized school security experts who said the answer to keeping schools safe is more complicated. 

Just a day after four students were killed in Georgia, Senator JD Vance said school shootings are not avoidable, but tighter security could keep kids safer.

Vance said the following:

"I don't like that this is a fact of life, but if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our our schools are soft targets. And we need to bolster security at our schools. We've got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they're not able."

Experts said the solution is not that simple.

"They want to see action that gets to the root issues, not short cuts that make people feel better but don't really address those issues," said Scott DiMauro, Ohio Education Association president.

Michael Dorn, Safe Havens International executive director, said the key is to have a positive school climate.

"What you really need is a very holistic approach, that involves things like security, technologies, hardware, school resource officers, but also your mental health support," said Dorn.

A 2022 report by the National Education Association shows security staffing in public schools has steadily risen since 2012 to 2013, with the number of police officers increasing by 123%, security guards by 32%, and other security personnel by 165%.

Yet in that same period, gunfire incidents in schools increased by over 400%.

"Going over the top, taking a skewed focus and putting your limited resources into target hardening is actually taking away from the time we need to focus on dealing with the school side of public safety," said Ken Trump, National School Safety and Security Services president.

Experts agree its important for schools to focus on prevention plans before a crisis happens.