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Should we arm students?

It has been said an idle mind is a blogger’s best friend.

Dr. David Hill, Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Blue Mountain School District, want to arm students. 

With rocks.

He wants to put a 5 gallon pail of river stones in each classroom so the students can throw rocks at an armed shooter.  River rocks are relatively small, smooth and easy to throw.

I suppose you could substitute golf ball, assuming the students did steal 'em for a quick round.

I don’t think he goes far enough.  The kids need practice.  Once a week at gym class they should spend a little time throwing rocks at a plywood cut out.  I’d start with a 16 inch hole at 15 feet, just throw it through the opening.  The kids that have trouble get a little extra coaching and attention.  Then narrow it down to an 8 inch hole at 10 yards.

The final goal is of course a life size 3D cut-out of an armed person. 

Who knows what this might grow into?  District rock throwing field events?  Precision throwing events?  New interests in field geology?

You think I’m writing tongue in cheek, right?

I’m not.

Dr. Hill is at least proposing something concrete that might work.  Not some pie-in-the-sky, hairball idea which is not feasible.  Ideas, like banning guns, making everyone submit to a psychiatric examination to find and treat anti-social personalities, more police stationed at every school, building schools like some kind of fantasy James Bondian fortress castle with tank pits, laser beams and metal detectors on all doors, windows and random hall locations, will not work.  These ideas include some FBI/NSA super computer scanning emails, cell phone calls and all of social media looking for a thousand and one key words and phrases that might indicate a problem.  His idea is better because it is what you can do, not what some anonymous they should be doing.

Let’s get real.

Assume there is a gunman in your school shooting students.  What are the options?

Call the police.  Great start, but what’s their response time?  Was that another gun shot?

You can barricade the doors to the classrooms and/or cafeteria.  Not a terrible idea.

Arm the teachers who want to be armed and give them additional training. I like it, but it’s not received well in many sectors of society.

You could hide under desks and tables and hope he doesn’t shoot you.  Terrible idea!  That’s like standing in front of an open box of candies and wondering which one you should take first.

You could fight back, couldn’t you?  That might not be as wacky as it sounds.

I wouldn’t want to face 4 or 5 people throwing rocks at me while I tried to engage them.  (That’s competition talk for shooting them.)

An informal study of spree shooters indicates they stop shooting when met with force.  Often they take their own lives.  Even the Federal government’s training videos indicate that attacking armed terrorist with improvised weapons (fire extinguishers, broom handles and cups of hot coffee) is an extreme but viable option for trapped potential victims.

I would prefer to read that Dickless Asshole pulled a gun and was shot dead by someone at the door of the school.  Barring that, I’d rather read that he was attacked by 4 or 5 people throwing rocks that kept him from killing anyone else until someone with a gun ended him.