Community Chat

[Dam Yankee]

On 1/14/2015 VCamp2748 said:

Give peas a chance.

lol

[DoneTryin]

On 1/14/2015 dooBdoo said:

On 1/14/2015 NoelSeven said:

On 1/14/2015 VCamp2748 said:

Give peas a chance.

Very good!

Hah! I love that!

(Would that be Van Camps' peas?)

Very good! Hadn't thought of that

[toodles11]

Well instead of dodge ball. these kids need to be throwing cans at each other so that they have enough practice should they ever need to protect themselves. Or maybe they should be throwing at the person that came up with this great idea.

[goodstuff]

I would laugh if it weren't so pathetic. And I love another poster's comment above: ""Don't bring a can to a gun fight."" Right on!

[faeriemoon]

Only if they contain high fat and high sodium foods.

[gardenman]

It's better than nothing which is what most classrooms have now. I could see this being effective in some ways/cases. Right now when there's an emergency, classes go into lockdown and wait in the classroom or closet to see what happens. If the cans are kept in a locked cabinet or a high shelf where only the teacher can reach/distribute them and then a gunman comes barreling in and suddenly finds twenty of more cans flying at him/her it should distract him/her at the very least. An impact in the right place could disable a gunman and at least it gives the class something to do. Hiding in a classroom/closet and praying the bad guy/gal won't shoot you isn't the most effective strategy. Books would tend to flutter through the air and many school books these days are paperback books so they'd be limited in effectiveness.

Now for adults in a bad situation things like shoes and belts can be made into effective close combat weapons in a pinch. A belt with a decent buckle swing over one's head has the potential to inflict damage on someone with a smallish knife like the 9/11 hijackers. Shoes swung by the laces and/or using the soles/heels as a hammer can also be effective in some close combat situations. But kids shoes and belts would be too light to have much impact, so canned goods makes some sense. They're small and light enough for a child to handle and throw, but have enough mass to get the attention of whoever they're thrown at.

If I'm locked in a classroom or closet while a shooting is going on nearby, I'm going to be looking for anything and everything to use as a weapon to try and stop the shooter if they come in. If there's a good sized canned good handy, it'll work for me. I'd give it a throw and hope for the best. As a rule school shooters aren't known for their courage. They target the weakest, least threatening targets possible. If you give those targets some way of resisting, regardless of its effectiveness, it might be enough to discourage an attack.

I still think a stun gun, flashbang grenade, or pepper spray would be more effective, but there's generally opposition to such items, so given the limited options, a canned good is better than nothing, and nothing is what most schools have now.

[chickenbutt]

Clearly, there's an uneven advantage so it's never that simple (well, and it's really stupid).

But one of my first thoughts is that I imagine somebody coming in with the intention to do great harm and some kid/teacher hurling cans of food at them. THAT would really pi $$ somebody off and I would predict those people would come to even greater harm.

I don't know if anybody here has ever been hit with cans of food, but it really HURTS! I'd be mad as a snake full of venom and there would be a lot more hurting going on after that!

[Blahblahvampemer]

The things dumb admin people come up with. Everyone should always ask themselves one question: How will this look on the evening news or social media? Stupid? Don't do/say it!

[SnowPink]

On 1/14/2015 JustJazzmom said:

If the principal is so concerned about the children's safety, maybe the police should be patrolling the grounds. If someone has a gun or automatic weapon, that person is going to get in somehow no matter how many deterrents a school puts in-- locked doors that have to be buzzed in or showing photo ID at the office before going further into the school.

Semi-automatic, you mean.

[SnowPink]

Sometimes in the middle of thinking about the next week's lessons, working on individualized plans for one or two children in their specific weak areas and picking out the next books I'll be reading aloud, I stop and wonder what I would do to protect my kiddos. I always think back to the Newtown story of the 1st grade teacher who told all of her kids that she loved them because she wanted the last words they heard to be good, loving ones.

Honestly, I still don't know what I would do. It's like we'd all just be sitting ducks. Sure, we have the "lock your doors and don't let anyone out of the room!" kind of things in place, but that's not going to stop a crazy person.