A Pennsylvania school is planning to fight active shooters…
“Every classroom has been equipped with a five-gallon bucket of river stone. If an armed intruder attempts to gain entrance into any of our classrooms, they will face a classroom full students armed with rocks and they will be stoned,” said Dr. David Helsel, [Superintendent of the Blue Mountain school district in Pennsylvania – Ed.] testifying to the House Education Committee last week in Harrisburg.
“At one time I just had the idea of river stone, they’re the right size for hands, you can throw them very hard and they will create or cause pain, which can distract,” Helsel told WNEP.
Helsel says teachers, staff, and students were given active shooter training through a program known as ALICE which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate and they routinely hold evacuation drills for active shooter simulations.
But if a teacher decides to lockdown a classroom, there are rocks in a five-gallon bucket kept in every classroom closet that students could throw if shooters get inside.
And the fact is, yes – with active shooters, any resistance is better than none. It’s just crazy enough to…well, maybe be better than useless.
Speaking of better than useless – the district took some more concrete action:
Helsel says the district has no plans to arm teachers, however, Blue Mountain does have a maintenance employee who is trained and certified to work as school security and is armed.
People may laugh – but it makes more sense than any Twin Cities public school is going to.
I saw this yesterday and thought it sounded stupid, but had some value. The problem I see is keeping the rock ammo from being used on students by students.
First time some kid gets his head split the district will get raked over the coals.
They better keep the rocks locked up lest they provide ammunition for a student who’s having a bad day and sees a bucket of rocks.
Rocks worked for Cain. Oh wait, they weren’t for defensive purposes, they must have been Assault Rocks.
“I got a rock.” takes on a whole new meaning in this context.
“Give them a whiff of gravel.”
“Only a boy named David
only a little sling
only a boy named David
but he could play and sing
Only a boy named David
only a rippling brook
Only a boy named David
but five little stones he took
and one little stone went in the sling
and the sling went round and round
and one little stone went in the sling
and the sling went round and round
and round and round and round and round and round and round and round
and one little stone went up in the air
and the giant came tumbling down”
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
But what if the bad guy has assault paper?
I saw this video a couple of weeks ago on how to use a sling. I never would have thought to use the figure 8 motion the guy describes, but I can see how it improves accuracy compared to other sling videos where the slingers used the lariat motion.
A sling coiled in a backpack would be a handy thing to have, if you know how to use it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkwNg_qBd8
Would that be an assault sling?
The single most important thing about the pail of rocks is it teaches the kids they have the power to fight back, to actively resist evil, rather than quietly sitting in their seats, waiting to die.
If the bucket o’ rocks fails to deter a mass killer, I suggest giving the kids a bunch of knives.
Everybody must get stoned.
Maybe squirt guns filled with sulfuric acid?
This is a crisis, gentlemen, a crisis! We need to think outside of the box, here! How about a gizmo that dumps a bucket of steak sauce on the shooter & then drops him into a tiger pit?
Did you know that all of the school shooters shot & killed for the last two decades (maybe longer) have been male? I’m callin’ disparate impact.
A sling coiled in a backpack would be a handy thing to have, if you know how to use it.
But if it’s in one of those transparent backpacks, you couldn’t conceal it.
That noted, you can hide weapons in your clothes, too. Just sayin’. (one of few ways to make public school worse than it is now, eh?)
Even if it was a transparent backpack, how many people would even recognize it for what it was?
In college, I knew a few guys who played D&D (still a thing, way back then). One kid’s character died of a self-inflicted wound. He was cleaning his sling and it went off.
Yes, alcohol was involved. Why do you ask?
How about a tank in each classroom, full of sharks with fricking laser beams on their heads?
Just post big signs in each classroom: “THIS ROOM IS A GUN FREE ZONE.”
Howabout bolos? You could tie it in with a lesson on the gauchos of the pampas.
I think I saw Jackie Chan take on like fifty guys with a yo-yo. Sure, it was a movie, but so was Tora Tora Tora, and you know what? The Japs really did attack Pearl Harbor.