Just saw a segment on the nightly news of what schools are doing to "protect" against armed threats.

The first one was an extinguisher sized pepper spray. They called it "Threat Extinguisher." They were showing teachers practicing with water aimed at a cutout. What caught my attention was when they said it was $1500 each! At that rate, I figure you can get a gun, ammo and equipment for $500 and $1000 worth of training.

They showed other measures like one school bought several bullet proof safe rooms to put children in at $200,000 each. The stupidest item was portable bullet proof whiteboards that were like maybe 2 1/2' x 2 1/2' square with handles that the teacher was supposed to scrunch up behind. Wow.

There's the link to the Threat Extinguisher.

ETA: I had to google the white board. I was wrong; it's not 2 1/2' x 2 1/2' board; it's 18" x 20"

Nah, give em a piece and teach em how to use it.

They could at least paint the whiteboard to look like a Captain America shield for that price.

Meanwhile, reasonable things like classroom doors that you don't have to go out into the hallway to lock, window reinforcement lamination film so that the school's windows can't be smashed/shot out as easily, or electronic buzzers and key fob systems so that all exterior doors can be locked at all times, cost pennies on the dollar compared to these overpriced and overhyped gimmicks.

Yet many schools still lack basic safety precautions like that.

How close do you have to be to an armed gunman to use the extinguisher?

I'm guessing the white board is not going to be too helpful for rifle rounds. Nor handgun rounds in the leg....

People need to learn - singular defense doesn't cut it here. A compelling offensive is indicated here. You need to STOP the threat, not just hide from it.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Meanwhile, reasonable things like classroom doors that you don't have to go out into the hallway to lock, window reinforcement lamination film so that the school's windows can't be smashed/shot out as easily, or electronic buzzers and key fob systems so that all exterior doors can be locked at all times, cost pennies on the dollar compared to these overpriced and overhyped gimmicks.

Yet many schools still lack basic safety precautions like that.

Yup.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Meanwhile, reasonable things like classroom doors that you don't have to go out into the hallway to lock, window reinforcement lamination film so that the school's windows can't be smashed/shot out as easily, or electronic buzzers and key fob systems so that all exterior doors can be locked at all times, cost pennies on the dollar compared to these overpriced and overhyped gimmicks.

Yet many schools still lack basic safety precautions like that.

Yup.

I don’t know about the reinforced windows, but our kids’ school has a really simple fix for the door locking. The doors are ALWAYS locked. They use a little rubber sliding “lock blok” on the inside of the door that prevents the door from completely closing and locking when extended. It is easy pushed in from inside, probably don’t even need to move the door, the the door closes completely and latches, and it is already locked.

https://doorblok.com/lockblok.html

Both are better than the silly idea of issuing hockey pucks to students and staff to throw at a shooter.

One idea I like is the Stop the Bleed campaign. It won't stop anything but at least it is something practical in teaching basic first aid and management of traumatic injuries until first responders arrive.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
How close do you have to be to an armed gunman to use the extinguisher?

Gas masks are pretty cheap, this is useless as hockey pucks.

Our school system is installing what is basically a giant deadbolt in all classroom doors. It consists of a pedal-activated piston on the bottom of the door which goes into a hole drilled into the concrete floor. Once engaged the door is virtually impossible to open from the outside.

To speed things along they even had a fundraiser so parents could “sponsor” a classroom. It was pretty successful.

armed officer at every school during school hours


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quote:

Our school system is installing what is basically a giant deadbolt in all classroom doors. It consists of a pedal-activated piston on the bottom of the door which goes into a hole drilled into the concrete floor. Once engaged the door is virtually impossible to open from the outside.

They have very simple technology that already exists that would handle every aspect of this problem. All you need is a door that locks when closed, a fire alarm, and a magnetic hold attached to the fire alarm. You typically see this already in schools, just not on the classroom doors.

An alarm is pulled, the magnets release the doors, and the doors close and lock. A single person could close and lock every single door in a school.

The doors can still be opened from within should anybody else need to be allowed in. They would need to adjust how they react to fire alarms though. Instead of hearing the alarm and immediately attempting to depart the building they would need to sit tight, wait for somebody to verify an evacuation is warranted, and then be given instructions to evacuate. Otherwise bad guys will just pull the alarm (or start a small fire) to get everybody to run out into the hallways.

https://www.threatextinguisher.com/packages/

Price gouge much ?

The truth is the left throws their hands up and say "You can't stop EVERYTHING by doing XYZ, so do nothing". Because a determined attacker can defeat many countermeasures IF they want to.

But the goal of hardening security, better doors / windows, visible police & security presence it making it harder for potential attackers. Just like you make your house difficult for robbers - not only to defend against it, but to make it an UNAPPEALING TARGET to potential criminals.

Same with a school. There is no 'perfect fix', no 'one size fits all'. But a well thought out security structure, coupled with an active and involved school community (teachers, parents, students, police, security) can and will dissuade / thwart a large percentage of potential threats.

You can look to Parkland and the ineffectiveness of just an armed cop and unarmed security at a school. Security ran away and the first cops sat around while the murders occurred.

I always thought about those metal pull down gates like a store would have. You have the gates through out the school and you can lock down sections as needed.

Then have inflatable window slides (like an airplane) where you can evacuate above ground floors.

This is in addition to a secure exterior doors. If the shooter is already inside the school its about minimizing further casualties.

I’m a former high school teacher. You can spot these troubled kids from a mile away. I’m all for giving teachers guns and whatever, but in reality, you can tell who these fucked up kids are waaaaaaay before they ever decide to do their thing.

They’re kids. You’re the adult. As a teacher, you can take proactive steps to handle the threat before it even happens...if the administration supports you.

It's true a shooter can wear a gas mask, but I do see smoke bombs and bear spray as a great start. Bear spray on the lens of a gas mask would cause some serious visibility issues.

They can always wear body armor, so a gun isn't a guarantee either. Step one is to accept that we need our teachers and students to fight back until the police can arrive. we can argue forever about what is the best/safest/right way to fight back, but let's start with the mindset that our kids and teachers aren't fish in a barrel waiting to get shot.

Smoke bombs and bear spray on a son of a bitch is a decent defense to start with and there's no excuse not to give those tools to our educators and students.

There are a lot of great ideas that can be implemented in this thread. I'd love to see folks in schools get off their asses and get things mentioned in here in place.

Our middle school used to be pretty open, but in the years between kids they locked it down pretty tight. Two entryways are open and monitored as kids are arriving, but as soon as the buses / cars are gone, big steel grated doors are swung shut and locked. The only entryway is now an 'airlock' of sorts - you walk into the first part with a welcome window but the second part is locked until you are buzzed through. School security / SRO is around - not far away. There is also a decent walk from the parking area to this entryway, giving good opportunity to spot someone who is 'not quite right'.

I'm sure more can be done but some of these schools are an absolute joke.

quote:

Originally posted by esdunbar:
It's true a shooter can wear a gas mask, but I do see smoke bombs and bear spray as a great start. Bear spray on the lens of a gas mask would cause some serious visibility issues.

They can always wear body armor, so a gun isn't a guarantee either. Step one is to accept that we need our teachers and students to fight back until the police can arrive. we can argue forever about what is the best/safest/right way to fight back, but let's start with the mindset that our kids and teachers aren't fish in a barrel waiting to get shot.

Smoke bombs and bear spray on a son of a bitch is a decent defense to start with and there's no excuse not to give those tools to our educators and students.

There are a lot of great ideas that can be implemented in this thread. I'd love to see folks in schools get off their asses and get things mentioned in here in place.

Just so I'm totally clear here, you're advocating for students or teachers to attempt to approach a shooter to tray and get close enough to spray them with Bear Spray? I think I'd advocate for ways to limit a potential shooters access to the school/kids/teachers rather than sending them into harm's way with an aerosol can.

This whole issue is really comical when you put any real thought into it. There are simple, cost effective ways to fortify schools against crazies. Of course legislatures could also get rid of the PC BS that protects the crazies from being dealt with 'before' they start shooting. Unfortunately, since politicians don't function with any measure of common sense, and have a huge lack of anything approaching a spine, they'll never figure it out, while more and more kids get shot.