For years, the standard instructions to teachers and students if a Columbine-style attacker launched a rampage at their school were the same: lock down and hide.
But now, in Canton and in a growing number of schools nationwide, police and school officials are training teachers, staff, and eventually even students that in some cases they should fight against armed attackers.
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This is amazing. It can counter years of being conditioned to be victims and just submit to the will of an oppressor. No one wants their son or daughter to be injured or killed. But maybe if the prospective shooters realized that it won't be an arcade game - these people are going to fight and the fantasy of dominance will be lessened. Any experienced shooter would have trouble aiming if 15 lb backpacks, books, lab equipment are being hurled at them. As far as boatwrote -- teachers have died defending their students in the past.
I may log into my son's account just so I can "like" your post twice. It is excellent. BTW, boatwrote's post was just humor based. I'm pretty sure he/she is on the same page as we are here. I'm still laughing at his/her last line!
Every desk should include at least five baseballs or hockey pucks!
This is fantastic! I had no idea this program existed but whole-heartedly support it. It appears to be an age appropriate aspect of "situational awareness". Something that every responsible person of any age should be practicing. We're not talking about being a paranoid end-of-days prepper here. Just a far better alternative to the passive duck and cover scheme that has failed a few unfortunate soles. I would likely sign on to aid this program if it came to either one of my kids (or the town) schools.
“Is it better to provide kids with no training and no discussion and no preparation?’’ Morrissey said. “This program might not be right for every school district, but with the increased violence across the country, I applaud schools for taking active steps to keep kids safe.” Is this really what we've come to? We're so accustomed to the idea that our communities have to be saturated with gun violence that we're training kids to resist armed attacks at school? Other countries don't have Columbine-style attacks. They're not inevitable, and it's time we started preventing them instead of asking children to clean up the mess.
Sadly, other countries do have school shootings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#2000s
Sure you can work on prevention. We also work on fire and accident prevention. It doesn't mean we don't have to know what to do when they do happen.
These incidents are extremely rare. 1 or 2 a year in a country of 350 million. We're far too paranoid about it, in my opinion.
Unless we become an extremely oppressive society and confiscate everyone's guns, there's no way to prevent such occasional events.
Since that's the case, why make your kids fearful. If the kids take such training seriously, it can only have that kind of result. If they don't take it seriously, then it's pointless. Kids are not adults.
I'm not at all sure about this. Unarmed kids against armed kids could cause additional deaths. Even worse, armed kids could lead to gun battles in the corridors.
Most school violence is caused by students, not strangers who wander in off the street. It seems to me that the major flaw is that those violence-prone students will be fully informed of the countermeasures that could be used against them because they'll be getting the same training.