As you might imagine, as school administrators should imagine, confronting a potential active shooter inside a school is about as dicey a proposition as you can get without sleeping on a craps table. Tactically, there’s no cover. Strategically, there’s no time. By the time the police arrive, dozens of people (children, teacher, administrators, parents) may be dead or injured. Schools up and down the country are conducting lock-down drills, teaching children the fine art of creating target rich environments for deranged killers. Even though there’s a long, sad and bloody history of American school shootings, hardly any educational establishments are tackling the real issue: how do we shoot the active shooter as quickly as humanly possible? Not the police. Us . . .
Last year, Baker Ballistics sold less than 100 of these PatrolBat shields to schools. According to 2002 stats compiled by data360.org, American is home to over 124,110 schools. It’s no wonder that Baker’s CEO despairs. “Google ‘school shootings,’ Rick Armellino advises. “You get pages and pages of tragedy. And yet [school officials] still think it can’t happen here.”
If it does, the PatrolBat offers a first responder an excellent chance of success doing what needs to be done: aggressively confronting and (if necessary) eliminating the threat to life and limb. The responder can shelter with confidence behind the shield, knowing that it will protect them from all but the highest velocity rounds.
The PatrolBat raises some important questions. Who’s going to pay $2175 per school to protect some 76 million students? Who’s going to take responsibility for taking out an active shooter from behind the PatrolBat when there isn’t a School Resource Officer or Security Guard on point? Who’s going to step up to protect America’s most important asset? And why would anyone want to stop them from doing so?
School shooting is a worldwide phenomenon. They’ve occurred in Finland, Germany, Scotland, Yemen, the Netherlands, Sweden, Bosnia, Argentina, Russia, India . . . . and I doubt that anyone anywhere is being proactive about defending the teachers and students.
I like the idea, but I don’t know if I like the idea of teachers running around with one.
No, but these should be in a locked, easily-accessible area on every floor of a school. Look at the recent school board shooting. If that “hero” guard had access to one of these nearby, he might have also been willing to take the shooter on without going back to his car for his vest and extra magazines. I’d say something like this should be in a locked box in as many locations as possible at a school, with the security staff having access to it. The stash could contain this gadget, a firearm or two, and extra rounds, along with a charged-up cell phone just in case the bad guys take the phone system down.
Brad, Please don’t take offense, but you are way over the top, man. You’ve probably been on board with those who say these incidents, tragic though they be, are rare and we need not over-react. Now listen to yourself. Thousands of dollars worth of anti-mass-shooter equipment on every floor of the school?
I think you need that meteorite protection I’m always selling on my blog.
You know what it is, in those perfectly choreographed fantasies you’re always working on, this equipment would really make a difference. But reality is not like that, and you know it.
So, no, I don’t accept that arming teachers or equipping them with this super shield or even arming private citizens in their homes is a good idea. Guns do more harm than good. Unless you’ve got a very high-risk situation, increasing the gun count makes matters worse.
Think about how few real DGUs we hear about. I mean “real” ones, the ones that are unquestionably defensive and unavoidable. Clayton used to produce a good site which posted two or three a day, some of which were dubious in my opinion, but in order to do that he had people all over the country feeding him the info from local and regional news sources. With none of that effort, gun violence is tragically easy to find and practically uncountable.
So, I remain unconvinced about the benefits of guns for defense.
Once again, mikeB shows he doesn’t believe in “innocent until proven guilty.”
“Guns do more harm than good.”
Really? As of yet my guns haven’t harmed anyone, and they have provided me and friends and family with many hours of relaxing recreational activities.
“Unless you’ve got a very high-risk situation, increasing the gun count makes matters worse.”
I’m in a very low risk situation being in my home in the safest state in the union…every gun I buy or that drops by with a friend only makes things better. I like it when a .380 LCP or .44 Magnum Dan Wesson ups the gun and round count of my house…and when I get to shoot it off the back porch, that’s just great.
People are so darn quick to opine on the subject of gun violence or gun control, often representing said opinion as fact. Everybody has an opinion…. but facts are facts. Fact….mass shooting situations in America are extremely rare. Fact…. gun violence in America has declined every year for two decades. Fact…..the use of private security personnel in America is on the rise, this includes in our schools. In fact this is one of the fastest growing industries there is. Fact.. that although improving, private security forces have a much higher instance of poor training, poor equipment and low compensation when compared with public law enforcement forces. OPINION…… although rare in number, these situations high in death toll, and when faced with a deranged mass killer, the quicker he or she is put down, the more lives will be saved. I believe all schools should have at least some personnel trained and equipped to deal with this issue. That being said, I don’t see every school in America getting a ballistic shield, a good handgun, and training employees or security officers to use them! Then of course we would open a whole new can of worms…… what do we do when members of our school’s “threat response teams” go “postal”?¿ Complicated issues often have complex solutions. Even though I believe our schools would be safer if we had these teams, it is certainly conceivable that creating these response teams could exacerbate the problem by creating a lot more potential opportunities for mass shootings to occur!
Just another citizen opining!
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