From WaPo:
One schools superintendent has a novel way to keep his students safe from school shooters: arming them with rocks.
David Helsel, superintendent of a school district in northeast Pennsylvania, explained his plan to a legislative education committee last week, drawing a flurry of local media coverage.
“Every classroom has been equipped with a five-gallon bucket of river stone,” Helsel explained about his Blue Mountain School District in Schuylkill County, northeast of Harrisburg, in a video broadcast by ABC affiliate 16 WNEP. “If an armed intruder attempts to gain entrance into any of our classrooms, they will face a classroom full of students armed with rocks, and they will be stoned.”
I actually like this idea.
- A single rock won’t likely kill anyone, no matter how hard it’s thrown in anger during a fight.
- Dropping a rock won’t endanger the classroom.
- Their presence doesn’t spur violence.
- You can use them safely to hold down the pages of books.
And if someone does come in with a gun, well, I wouldn’t care to be met with a barrage of rocks from all sides. So long as the NRA is going to continue to endanger our children with their absurd claims, we might as well use relatively safe emergency procedures as a final backup.
Keeping in mind, of course, that this is not a solution – merely a stopgap until the adults can reassume control of this asylum.
This guy doesn’t sound like he gets it, BTW:
Kenneth S. Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, a K-12 security consulting firm, told the Associated Press that the idea was illogical and could possibly cost lives, adding that it fills an emotional security need but does not actually improve security.
Given the number of gun accidents that happen involving even trained people, such as the police, neither does putting armed people – even SWAT officers – in schools.
