G8 Pro V2 (courtesy guardian8.com)

By Paul Hughes

Soon after the Columbine shooting, security experts, school administrators and other observers at the time began looking for lessons in the “teachable moment.” Since then, with shootings from Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook to Isla Vista, we’ve had a teachable decade-and-a-half to learn from these incidents, yet there’s little evidence schools are getting any safer. Some experts say they may even be getting less safe. What are we not learning? Are we even asking the right questions? . . .

An understandable but unfortunate consequence of these high-profile events is an excessive focus on the active shooter, defined by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” We’re seeing a kind of tunnel vision on this issue, as if school safety were defined by how well schools drill for the active shooter scenario. This narrow focus excludes the broad range of day-to-day security threats that schools and colleges face, the vast majority of which do not involve a rampaging gunman.

In a recent article, Emergency Management editor Jim McKay argues that training and security measures focused on school shootings are flawed and overshadow more common types of violence on campus. McKay noted that school administrators are being bombarded with “technology fixes” in the form of cameras, metal detectors, buzzers, bulletproof white boards and the like, while also relying too much on active shooter training.

McKay and other experts take issue with the “Run, Hide, Fight” approach suggested by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The approach (shown in the video below, created by the City of Houston with Department of Homeland Security funds) is widely adopted as a training mechanism in active shooter scenarios. It urges people to run, hide or, as a last resort, fight off a gunman, rather than simply wait for law enforcement to arrive.

In the same article, security expert Michael Dorn is quoted as saying, “Many schools today are in fact less safe than they were before Sandy Hook, and that one reason for this is the heavy emphasis on active shooter scenarios. The ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ video, like other training being done in schools is neither evidence-based nor proven to work.”

It’s not that Congress isn’t talking about and throwing money at the problem. Lawmakers are actively engaged in discussion about what types of tools or methods our schools and colleges should implement to keep everyone safe. According to another recent article, the U.S. government has dedicated over $300 million in the past two years to enhancing school security.

But the money has gone on churning out reports, research, assessments and position papers, instead of the actual installation of security technology and equipment, such as surveillance systems, according to John Chwat, director of government relations at the Electronic Security Association.

In other words, no real action is taking place. Frustratingly, those most affected by all this indecision and foot-dragging are the educators, students, parents and others who make up the education community. In short, they’ve been left in the lurch.

My employer, Guardian 8, recently conducted research of over 500 educators and students around the nation. The data shows educators are anxious and nervous because they feel unsafe and don’t feel properly protected. In some cases, students reported taking their safety into their own hands by purchasing pepper spray for themselves or family members. After the Sandy Hook shootings, one Colorado mother even started an online petition encouraging lawmakers to require teachers to have TASERs in classrooms (not part of our research).

Instead of asking teachers and students—in some cases, even elementary school students—to train how to disarm a gunman, we at Guardian 8 believe it makes much more sense to focus on providing tools that enable users to reduce violence by de-escalating threatening events. To that end, we have defined a market category for personal safety and security tools called Enhanced Non-Lethal (ENL) devices.

The first commercially-available ENL product is the G8 Pro V2—a cost-effective tool that can enable school emergency response teams to delay an attack and defend students if necessary, while documenting the event and communicating with law enforcement, with just one device. At less than the cost of a smart phone, the G8 Pro V2 can be used by anyone who is properly trained, including teachers and coaches. Congress needs to stop dragging its feet, stop spending money on consultants and start spending precious, limited budget dollars on actual tools that can provide protection now.

 

Paul Hughes is COO of Guardian 8. This article is republished with permission from Security Products magazine and security-today.com

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

76 COMMENTS

  1. What is that? A camera with a trigger?
    How about letting teachers have the tools to react to a shooter during the minimum 10 minutes before armed police arrive? Most shooters kill themselves once the police get there, so most of their kills are done before hand.

  2. little evidence schools are getting any safer or LESS safe. The entire “issue” is agenda driven and manufactured BS. “Solutions” is search of a problem.

  3. Am I missing something? Why is this article here? Arm teachers and train them, make schools un-gun-free zones… Follow Israel’s model!

    • “Arm teachers and train them, make schools un-gun-free zones… Follow Israel’s model!”
      QFE!
      Spot on.

    • I don’t know about teachers. But we protect money in banks with trained and often armed guards and kids are not less valuable.

      After the NRA suggestion on armed guards, the antis claimed that schools with armed guards, typically police, are less safe. That is, like many arguments of the antis, a statistical fallacy because they compare schools in dangerous urban areas and extant crime, with guards to schools in safer areas without guard

      In fact in equal demographic school comparisons, those with armed guards have less murder (very rare anyway), and way less assaults and less sexual assaults.

  4. Okay so I looked that…. thing… up. I am not in any way joking when I tell you that it is oc spray with a siren, laser, and camera attached to it.

    I am beyond words right now.

    • That doodad is vastly inferior to a semi-automatic handgun or an AR-15. Heck, you could use the little camera to document your foolish death.

    • I was wondering why they didn’t bother trying to explain what the F it was despite that fact that the article appears to be an advertisement for it.

    • Thank you! Was wondering WTF it was, but didn’t care enough to Google it.

      So the spray pisses him off, the siren gives him a headache/exposes your location and the camera records your comically futile struggle to survive, before he kills you. Great.

      But, what’s the laser for? I assume it doesn’t go pew-pew.

  5. A gun shaped, pepper spray, laser pointer, strobe light, camera, siren, bluetooth party favor made for participating in raves or mosh pits.

    Hmm, what other gun shaped object would be effective in stopping monsters before or during a mass shooting?

    It boggles the mind.

    • The only reason it would need a camera is if it’s creators don’t expect it to save any lives and the pictures it records will have to substitute for eye witness accounts.

  6. I’ve got a little piece of advice. If any of you find yourself in the midst of an active shooter, SHOOT THE MOTHER FV#%ER!

    I thought for a minute that video was going to be a hilarious parody where at the very end the shooter breaks in and 8 people open up with their EDCs. How anyone could watch that video/agitprop and not think, ‘Wow, if I was ever in a situation like that I’d sure be wishing I had a gun.’ is beyond me. Oh well. I guess if I were there (sans gat of course) I’d use the fire extinguisher to spray the shooter in the face and get one of the others to bludgeon him with a coffee maker or something. Getting sprayed in the face with a fire extinguisher would have to be disorienting.

    And if they were worried about ‘the children’ they’d spend the money on seat belts for school buses and tornado shelters. Is anyone really surprised that they spent all that money for ‘reports’. Washington is just a den of thieves who hand out cash to their cronies from the slush fund they stole from the rest of us. The last thing they want to do is accomplish anything.

  7. Wow! Their video has more buzz words than the anti-gun media. I need a new bingo card!

    This jackass is no different than the security vultures he claims he is not. Pure and simple, fear sells useless products for 1 in a million active shooter scenarios. So, as the author posits, an active shooter is in the building and a camera with a pistol grip is somehow suppose to stop them, and oh if that guy gets within 10ft, you can pepper spray him — yeah, good luck with that. At that point the teacher simply a human Shield and some politician or school admin type will be sure to say something nice at the funeral.

    School buildings can use security upgrades, but this is not the upgrades they need.

    The issue is about taking another human life, nobody in their right mind should want that, but this country needs to get a morality check, if someone is trying to take your life, their life is worth nothing and the response should be in that context.

    This nonsense that everyone is a precious little flower and there are no losers but only winners has got to go. Since the beginning of time there has always been murders, and the proper response proven to work 100% of the time is an equally deadly response which renders the would be murder dead.

    I detest security companies that rely solely on FUD for marketing

    • this country needs to get a morality check, if someone is trying to take your life, their life is worth nothing and the response should be in that context.

      And if someone is trying to take a group of children’s lives, their life is worth LESS than nothing, too bad we can’t torture them for a month or two on live TV before we kill them

  8. More from ASIS (a professional security trade association, not a vendor):

    26 Safe School Standards
    Be able to create a mental … in the development of the 26 Safe School Standards and Excellence in Safe School Operations Certification for all school levels, and pioneered Standards Based …
    Date: 3/27/2014Size: 63KB
    http://www.asisonline.org/Education-Events/Education-Programs/Webinars/Pages/26-Safe-School-Standards.aspx

    Staying Safe at School, 2nd Edition
    in its second edition, Staying Safe at School is a guidebook that every parent and school administrator should make available to students
    Date: 12/2/2013Size: 65KB
    http://www.asisonline.org/ASIS-Store/Products/Pages/Staying-Safe-at-School-2nd-Edition.aspx

    Twelve Symptoms of a School with Problems (Webinar)
    it seems to identify whether or not your school has problems. Often there are telltale signs … with their lawyer announcing a lawsuit against your school and you don’t know anything …
    Date: 6/25/2014Size: 65KB
    http://www.asisonline.org/ASIS-Store/Products/Pages/Twelve-Symptoms-of-a-School-with-Problems-.aspx

    Violence Assessment and Intervention: The Practitioner’s Handbook, 2nd Ed
    education which addresses the problem of school shootingsAn in-depth look at which … A chapter on post-secondary education which addresses the problem of school shootings …
    Date: 1/22/2014Size: 65KB
    http://www.asisonline.org/ASIS-Store/Products/Pages/Violence-Assessment-and-Intervention-The-Practitioners-Handbook-2nd-Ed.aspx

    Several pages more here:
    http://www.asisonline.org/Search/Pages/Results.aspx?k=school

    My point? Two. First, there has been a lot of effort put forth on “educating the educators” by local police and actual security professionals. But the educators must want to listen. Having the budget to buy countermeasures is also a rather big bonus.

    And second, there is no “magic gizmo” that’s going to stop an attack in its tracks, no matter what the vendor says at the time. Except, as seen on TV, a bullet. Things can slow an attacker, or possibly deter an attack in the first place. But stuff like the gizmo above is just good for compiling the post mortem report(s).

    Personally, I’ve developed a severe allergy to marketing and sales BS over the years. It makes me break out in salty language in talking to vendors at times. It’s one of the reasons I retired when I did.

  9. Who knows more about these situations than the Israeli schools. Follow the model PM Maier put in place & within a year the number of non-gang related problems will make CNN mad as they can’t “report”
    on something that is not there. At least anymore than currently done. Teachers are armed & not even the other teachers know who, give tasers to a few for the gang fights & 9mm jhp + training for all w/only a select few armed.

    Train all so if an armed teacher goes down another can use the weapon or the bad guy’s if more than a single looney.

    The entire country has the same problem. Arming the teachers & repealing the shooter friendly zones is the best start.

    By shooter friendly zone I mean the stupid no guns or tobacco signs @ schools, malls etc… before I get a ton of hate replies.

    • Agree, Retired LEO.

      Here’s Mas Ayoob saying same, here in 2012, post Sandy Hook, just like he did, post-Columbine.
      http://backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/2012/12/15/against-monsters/

      Here is more on the Ma’alot massacre you referred to in 1974.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27alot_massacre

      I attended a BulletProof Mind seminar a couple years ago, sponsored by an area church, hosting Col Dave Grossman, who trains a lot of cops. He said the number one scenario that scares the guys in the fusion centers is another Beslan.

      http://www.killology.com/art_mass_slaughter.htm

      With news from Texas that ISIS is just across the border in Juarez and planning a mass event in the US, its worth reminding ourselves that expanding gun free zones only makes kids more vulnerable.

      To quote Dave Workman in an 2012 Seattle Times article post Sandy Hook, about what President Obama said then- “We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action,” Obama said, “regardless of the politics.”

      I’d say the Progtards, most especially Moms Demanding Action, paid by Bloomberg, to denounce the NRA, are actually making kids MORE at risk.

      And clearly, more parents and teachers agree with Col Grossman, and Mas Ayoob, that its better to keep and bear arms, to protect the kids, “regardless of the politics”.

      • I’d say the Progtards, most especially Moms Demanding Action, paid by Bloomberg, to denounce the NRA, are actually making kids MORE at risk. They want more kids to die so they can have a ” conversation” about more badly needed gun control. Makes a sick and twisted sense to me, but when has gun control had anything to do with public safety?

    • Train all so if an armed teacher goes down another can use the weapon or the bad guy’s if more than a single looney.

      This part I differ with. All teachers should be armed. Do we train cops to pick up someone else’s gun, or do we have each bring his/her own?

      And before anyone even says it, if a particular teacher cannot be trusted with a gun, can that teacher be trusted with your children? And what precautions are you taking NOW to see that teacher cannot bring a loaded gun to school?

  10. That thing is almost useless. (Almost b/c pepper spray MIGHT help). You’d be better off with a gun, folder and OC.

  11. Wow. Just wow.
    Pepper spray shaped like a gun. Laser pointer, strobe, camera..
    Lights, camera, Action! The camera will record the holders demise from the one-in-ten million active shooters.

    I don’t know that I’ve seen a more worthless gimmick. Excuse me while I pack my accordion to go bear hunting. Right after I knit some socks for my pet boa constricter.

  13. We really need to find a better term than “active shooter.”

    It frames the act of shooting the same way “assault weapons” frame our favorite semiauto rifles: negatively. There are all sorts of active shooting scenarios (3-gun competitions come to mind) that don’t involve murdering people. Virtually all active shooting is peaceful and safe. Yet an “active shooter” is a killer. A murderer with a gun.

    If that’s so, then a gun owner — who presumably shoots frequently, maybe even actively — and hasn’t harmed anyone is what? A passive shooter? Apparently so. And by connotation, gun owners are nothing more than murderers that haven’t gone “active” yet.

  14. I had to go to 3 different pages on the G8 site in order to find out what the hell this thing does…wtf?

  15. One way to make an active shooter inactive is to make him assume room temperature. Fast. Another way is to allow him to kill so manny people that he runs out of ammo or time and makes himself assume room temperature.

    They’re your kids. You figure it out. I really don’t care anymore.

    • The correct thing to do is let him slaughter as many kids as possible so we can pass badly needed gun control legislation

  16. At least the conversations are changing to “do something to protect yourself and the kids”
    besides hide and die-in-place.

    http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article595097.html

    Interesting that Gov Nixon vetoed a Republican sponsored bill to allow teacher concealed carry.
    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/07/16/3460488/missouri-vetoes-teacher-gun-bill/

    But the Progtard narrative seems to be cracking- no one seems to be blindly following their mandates from above, and in the crunch times, Democrats are oddly…lost.

    http://online.wsj.com/articles/more-texas-schools-allow-armed-employees-1408986620
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/08/15/missouri-gov-jay-nixon-stumbled-in-ferguson-hes-trying-to-regain-his-footing/

    keep up the good work TTAG.

  17. “… we at Guardian 8 believe it makes much more sense to focus on providing tools that enable users to reduce violence by de-escalating threatening events.”

    What is this guy talking about?!?!? Does he think people should try to “de-escalate” a spree killer? If that is what he is suggesting, he is completely out of touch with reality.

    This is how you handle a spree killer: you bring deadly force to bear on the spree killer as quickly as possible, period. You don’t try to psychoanalyze or de-escalate the spree killer in the middle of their rampage. Every second that the spree killer operates with impunity equals more casualties.

    My solution is simple and cheap: a single-shot break-action 20 gauge shotgun in a locked case in just about every classroom and a separate locked box at least 10 feet away with a single 20 gauge slug. And in order to open both boxes the teacher has to use a key and another person has to actuate the ammunition box at the same time. That means any teacher who has a need to bring that shotgun to bear can do it as long as another person actuates the ammunition box at the same time. This eliminates the possibility of a teacher “going off the rails” and using the 20 gauge shotgun to kill students … not to mention the fact that even if the teacher somehow got the shotgun out of its lock box there is only one shotgun shell in the other box which prevents any more than one casualty.

    We have to stop pandering to these people who abhor violence. Righteous violence is necessary in the real world. If it wasn’t necessary, we would not have police and armies. Get over it.

    • the teacher has to use a key and another person has to actuate the ammunition box at the same time. That means any teacher who has a need to bring that shotgun to bear can do it as long as another person actuates the ammunition box at the same time. This eliminates the possibility of a teacher “going off the rails” This idea needs to go off the rails. The Adam Lanzas need to assume room temperature fast. If you cannot trust the teachers, then they should not be teachers. We should apply this great idea of providing a single cartridge to LEOs as well. That will go over like a lead balloon.

      • +1 this whole ” what if the teacher snaps” ideology is beyond stupid… Or do you forget teachers usually drive cars to school, and park them near where large groups of children congregate… Every morning? (Gasp!)

      • I specified a single-shot break-action 20 gauge shotgun (with one slug) because they would be incredibly cheap and because they eliminate the primary objection of gun grabbers that a teacher or student will use a firearm in the classroom to go on a spree killing.

        I cannot imagine it would cost a manufacturer more than $40 per shotgun manufactured in mass quantity (allowing for synthetic stocks). If the average school has 20 classrooms, that is only $800 per school for the shotguns. The steel lock boxes should not cost twice that. So, for around $2,400 per school, every classroom could have a single-shot break-action 20 gauge shotgun.

        Is that an idea solution? Probably not. Is it affordable? Yes. Does it provide a ginormously higher level of protection than we have now? Yes. Is it a solution that eliminates the primary gun-grabber objection of “teachers going off the rails” and using a firearm to go on a killing spree? Yes.

        Like it or not, gun-grabbers have an effective lobby that prevents any sort of armed security measures in schools (short of paid police officers). I am proposing a solution that gets past the primary objection of gun grabbers … and the usual objections because of budgets.

        • A teacher going off the rails should be stopped by another teacher with a gun, just like everywhere else in society. Wee-bitty teachers can carry a .22 short for all of me, Coach can carry a .45 double stack. All teachers armed, or find another job. There would never be another school shooting to show how well it would work, shootings are a response to gun-free zones. Side benefit, teachers now know what they are talking about vis-à-vis firearms.

        • Another way to get around the objections of gun grabbers is to publicly point to and laugh at the stupidity of their proposals. By the time the “security vendors” finish with it, the “ammunition actuation device” would cost $20k. What’s wrong with the ammo being locked in the desk drawer?

          Oh, and for inner city schools, the kidz would be better armed than the shooter anyway.

    • Um, what happens if the teacher manages to find another teacher in time, and both manage to unlock the shotgun and the ammo box in time, and they get one shot, and they either miss or the 20guage shot doesn’t incapacitate the murderer?

      • In a nutshell: tough luck.

        Don’t miss. And using a slug means it will most likely incapacitate an attacker if you can hit them anywhere center of mass or even near the center of an arm or leg.

        • “Don’t miss” and “tough luck”? That’s the answer? I’m sorry, but that is beyond ignorant to say. One shot in a high pressure, adrenaline-fueled situation where the lives not only of the teacher but of the students are in danger is not enough for a highly trained military or law enforcement member, forget about a school teacher whose primary job is to teach.

        • Dev,

          The context of my solution is to get something past the gun grabber lobby which has totally stonewalled any armed solution — other than paid police in every school which is financially not feasible.

          Of course the best tactical solution is a pump action or semi-auto shotgun or rifle (with lots of ammunition) and lots of training for the teachers who may have to use them. However, as I stated in other posts on this thread, the gun grabber and academia lobby have totally nixed any armed approach whatsoever. I am offering an approach that is a huge improvement over what we have now … and it actually has some chance of happening because it solves the two foremost objections: “postal” teachers and budget limits. Or we can keep pushing the optimum tactical solution for the next several years and leave our children defenseless. Sometimes a so-so solution is better than none at all.

        • Ok, while I don’t agree with your specific idea, I completely agree with your intention. Thanks for clarifying.

    • Pump action 20, #3 buck, full tube, Electronic lock, pin + rfid card, all faculty can access, opening case triggers fire alarm. 1 per classroom + 1 in main office. All faculty shoots 25 rounds semi annually. That could not cost more than 50 grand per school.

      • OK, let’s just be sure that each teacher can also bring his/her OWN gun to school. Which should follow really easily. Guns EVERYWHERE will eliminate murdered 6-yr-olds.

    • de-escalating threatening events

      One or two to the face will normally accomplish that, and more quickly than most any other method.

    • The antis won’t go for ANY kind of guns in achools. We will have to overpower the antis before we can overpower the psychos. After that just allow teacher CCWs. Zero dollars. I hope I don’t sound cold but this is a minor issue. How many kids die from falling down in the bathtub? Shall we have them wear bicycle helmets? Shooters in schools are rare, we would get more done looking for other ways to protect people, like snatching drivers liscenses from people who can’t/won’t drive properly. Of course that idea lacks emotional appeal, much to dry for the 5 o’clock news.

  19. This goofy toy this company is peddling, while they decry the “waste of resources” being spent on other safety and security approaches, is basically the pot calling the kettle a waste of resources.

    Seriously? This radar gun-looking contraption has three stages of response. It progresses from laser spotter/digital camera, to siren/strobe light/recorded message player, to…..wait for it…..pepper spray! That’ll learn ’em!

    There are lunatics out there occasionally mowing down kids and school staff with AR’s, shotguns and semi-auto handguns. Yet, these me-too, federal trough swilling yahoos want to arm teachers with what? A glorified electronic New Year’s Eve party favor?

    Don’t bring a G8 Pro V2 to a gun fight.

  20. Schools are not getting any better. I told a friend’s wife who is a secretary at a school to, in an emergency, use a fire extinguisher as a weapon. She told me she had NEVER been taught how to use an extinguisher to fight a fire! These are supposed to be educators.

    • I haven’t had any job where we were trained to use fire extinguishers, even when I had to carry one on my truck.

      • Ahhh….but you do. If you’ve never gone through basic fire safety training and never actually tried to put out a sample fire with an extinguisher, you may never know that there’s a little pin in the handle. It serves as a safety, just like on a firearm, and must be removed in order to discharge the extinguisher.

        I’ve been in training before where one person after another neglected to pull the pin, despite have just been trained on that back inside, and they panic. They’d probably do the same in a real fire, especially if they’ve never actually used an extinguisher before.

        Or you’ll see people just spray the flames themselves, instead of the base of the fire, and the compound just sails through the unaffected fire.

  22. Lawmakers are actively engaged in discussion about what types of tools or methods our schools and colleges should implement Yeah they keep pushing more gun control which just works ducky swimmy. School safety is just full of gimmicks.

    • When parents in the Midwest get concerned about tornados. They act like they’re just bad thunderstorms now for the most part. Until one hits their town.

  24. School shootings are rare statistical anomalies. They don’t occur frequently or infrequently enough to
    declare schools more or less safe. The only thing we do have is an increasing population concentrating ever more in urban and suburban areas, with school numbers and capacities not keeping up with the student populations.

    Overall, we’re safer than ever as far as crime, although the disarmed inner cities are increasingly violent while he armed suburbs and rural areas are generally minimal crime (if not near the Mexican border).

  25. Tasers put out about 10 joules of energy. If we can up that to 200 joules (switchable of course) we’d have a combination taser and “automatic external defibrillator.” I’d market them to law enforcement with a switch marked “AED” on one side, and “Dirtbag” in the other position.

  27. And when the next Beslan slaughterhouse happens…

    The very thought of that *thing* makes me nauseous…

  29. To me it makes me think of threatening an attacker with a blow dryer.

    Really, when I looked at this, I thought, “okay, there -has- to be something more to this. Microwave ‘pain beam’?” – Nope. Laser pointer. Blinky LED, camera, siren and pepper spray.

    This “the feels” thing is getting out of hand. If a *spree killer* shows up, (okay, ‘active shooter’) – and you’re first line of defense… which is *obviously* what this thing is aimed at… you have a guy who’s absolutely off his rocker in a rage, and you point essentially a toy gun at him.

    How’s that going to end?

    I just don’t understand this. They even call it a “soft” tactic. And juxtapose it with spree killers? “Soft” tactics and de-escalation, when you’re the *first person* that someone bent on slaughtering hundreds happens to meet?

    *Items like this are going to get people killed.* You might as well tell them to pack airsoft. You’re asking first responders to bluff, and hope that the shooter won’t call it.

    I read this long story about how we aren’t doing enough to protect our schools from Adam Lanza II, and then the answer is, “So, in conclusion, I present this device that does nothing.”

    Ten feet of pepper spray. That’s a dude-and-a-half’s length away. Ten whole feet. And a (legally, has to be) <5mW laser pointer. The same one my cats like to chase. And what I can only assume is a blinky LED that's called a "strobe".

    And a glowing orange LED inside, and some sort of… vent on the front, to make it look cool?

    This is honestly one of the weirdest devices I’ve ever, ever seen.

    “Gun stigma” has gone too far. It’s like we can do anything, everything, and even whacked-out “wtf” things; “something! anything!” in response to Sandy Hook — so long as that response isn’t firearm related.

    Look people. The spree killer *is going to have a firearm*. Yes, he’s going to have that dirty icky thing – a gun. Whether he should, or shouldn’t; whether it’s legal or illegal, whether he passed a background check or not. It might have 30 rounds, it might have 10. It might have 7. It might have a muzzle device; the point is — he’s going to have the advantage, so long as we keep d!cking around with this “Oh no, ANYTHING but a gun!” noise.

    If we want the “armed person” in schools to be an LEO – fine, let’s talk about that (since LEOs are magical Hoplomancers who can contain the wily and unpredictable ways of the firearm, yes, I know..)

    • (ugh – hit the button) –

      … anyways; *this* crap, this theatre, these toys – THIS is going to make things less safe, because we want to make sure everyone has this “feeling” of safety without actually engaging in *defense*, which is required when there is an *attacker*.

      Yes. An ATTACK must be DEFENDED against, not … responded to with a feigned parry using a toy that blinks and squirts tabasco.

  30. What’s with the pussification of America attitude? Run, hide?? How about cower and cry like a little child? Call the police – so they can wait for backup before engaging the bad guy… arrrrggg.
    Not that I want everyone to be a Rambo, but someone carrying could end the scenario long before cops arrive, saving lives.
    /rant over.

    Nothing more than a commercial for a high tech $280 pepper spray device it appears.

    Here is an idea. Rather than making a target rich environment – no gun zones- let people exercise their right to carry. I will concede that for a (grade) school situation perhaps additional training to reinforce target and background awareness seems appropriate.

  31. BUT… if you point that lil’laser pointer right into the BG’s eyes for a few seconds you could temporarily blind him!

  32. Just wondering why anyone thinks it is a good idea to assemble thousands of totally helpless victims anywhere. Seems to me the problem of “school” safety would be solved by not congregating so many helpless little people in one place. Leaving the teachers and parents alone to be armed, or not, as they wish is a great idea… but you still have the “fish in a barrel” problem in “schools.”

    There are lots of other reasons not to place your child in the government indoctrination centers. The statist, socialist conditioning happens to every child, every day. Shooters only come along infrequently. So which is the real danger?

  33. Lol anyone else catch that gun free zone sign on the door of the office in that shooter video? Probably not a coincedince.

    • I bet it is. I mean, if you have the sign, why are you bothering to train for something which can’t happen?

  34. I think Bloomberg should buy a whole bunch of these devices, then order Shannon Watts to organize MDA “Members” into “Mom Squads” armed with G8 Pro V2’s (with a pair of scissors as a back-up) and post them at every Grade, Middle and High School in the Country. This solution should make everybody happy, spend a boatload of Bloomberg’s billions, give MDA something worthwhile to propagandize about, make parents and children “feel” safe, encourage Unicorns to visit Kindergarten Classrooms regularly and make this Paul Hughes guy rich.. Problem Solved! 😉

    Moms should quit “Demanding Action” and “Take Action”, since they “don’t want no steenking guns in the schools”. I volunteer “Claire” from Texas to be the Commander of the Mom Squads.

    Now let’s all go shooting and forget about this bovine scatology….

  35. That G8 gizmo is the modern day version of Barney Fife’s one bullet in the pocket, but not even as effective. I completely reject the notion that we should protect schools with something ineffective just because the anti-gunners won’t let them have something that is effective. That G8 thing would be nothing more than a false sense of security.

    Perhaps in the end, people will never allow teachers to have guns and school districts will never be able to afford guards. But I don’t think we’ve tried nearly hard enough for either of those options to throw in the towel. We find one school district in the country, just one, to do it and get it on the news shows and more will follow. And if in the end, we do need a whiz-bang solution, it needs to be better than that G8 thing. Something that fires rubber bullets or taser darts. Heck, I’d volunteer to be a school guard if you’d give me a compound crossbow!

  36. The practice of passing what is essentially promotional material off as an article (above) bears an uncomfortable resemblance to native advertising.

    Is this the direction you are taking the blog, Robert?

  37. I wonder if that product still works after the guy holding it gets shot in the head by the bad guy? Bring pepper spray to a gunfight much?

Comments are closed.