8 ms·

Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

52 points by smacktoward 8y ago

gojomo 8y ago
The panicked, reckless nonsense of "active shooter drills" is eventually going to get someone actually killed. (Compare: the DEA agent who shot himself while talking to a classroom about gun safety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNa5n2I_DUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNa5n2I_DUw https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/safety-first/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/safety-first/ )
- scott_s 8y ago
  Some of the ones which are done during the school day, involving students, sound horrific: Active-Shooter Drills Are Tragically Misguided, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/active-shooter-drills-erika-christakis/580426/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/active-...
  - AWildC182 8y ago
    This feels like a weird thing to say but exposing students (or anyone) to this seems like a really bad idea. By letting them experience that kind of terror, I feel it may give anyone with sociopathic tendencies 'ideas' and may influence them to seek that kind of control over others. We're all just the sum of our experiences and giving young impressionable kids terrifying experiences in the pursuit of protecting them from something that is statistically incredibly unlikely seems like a good way to make it statistically less incredibly unlikely.
    - gumby 8y ago
      I believe terrorizing the population into compliance is the point. I don't think you have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        This puts the terrorist and the government firmly on the same side. Wasn't that the terrorists intention all along?
        gumby 8y ago
        each depends on the other.
      - blattimwind 8y ago
        Obey & Survive
    - jka 8y ago
      It's not weird to say; that assessment makes sense to me and I'm fairly sure it would to others as well. Sociopathic kids will use the events and memories from the drills as triggers to intimidate and remind their peers of the threat - or as you say, even further as inspiration for actual attacks. And I'd be willing to bet there are some unusual psychological characteristics of the folks who perform these drills and arrange them - does a normal-minded person really want to teach others what it's like to live in threat of imminent death? All of this time and money should go to reducing the possibility of shootings occurring in the first place, and reducing the cycles of hurt which lead to them, rather than re-enacting and normalizing them.
      - dashundchen 8y ago
        Anecdotal but the mentality and culture of those I know who work in law enforcement in the US is quite frightening. Referring to fellow citizens as civilians as if they were separate from them, obsessions with guns and military equipment, and maybe most visibly telling, mixing "blue line" symbols with things like "The Punisher" logo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher > The character is an Italian-American[4][5] vigilante who employs murder, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence, and torture in his campaign against crime. Driven by the deaths of his wife and two children who were killed by the mob for witnessing a killing in New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on the mob and all violent criminals in general while employing the use of various firearms.[6] His family's killers were the first to be slain.[7] A war veteran and a United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper, Castle is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, guerrilla warfare, and marksmanship.[4][5] > The Punisher's brutal nature and willingness to kill made him a novel character in mainstream American comic books when he debuted in 1974. By the late 1980s, the Punisher was part of a wave of psychologically-troubled antiheroes.
- koolba 8y ago
  Why the hell is the gun loaded?!
  - AWildC182 8y ago
    Why was it even real? It's a school. If you really need to do demonstrations, get a plastic prop gun.
    - hippich 8y ago
      I think it was the best kind of demonstration how dangerous guns are, that even DEA agent managed to literally shoot himself in the foot. I only hope it was not done on purpose.
      - wl 8y ago
        It's not as if the pistol malfunctioned. If the agent had kept his booger hook off the bang switch, everything would have been fine.
    - marzell 8y ago
      Reminds me of DARE when they'd show a vial of crack. A picture would have been sufficient.
  - wl 8y ago
    He probably carries a pistol with him everywhere and standard practice is to keep it loaded with a round chambered. If demonstrating safe handling were necessary, he probably should have brought another pistol and kept his carry weapon holstered. In any case, he should have cleared the weapon before his demonstration and kept it pointed in a safe direction.
- ronsor 8y ago
  That is terribly ironic. Why did he use a loaded gun again.
- Balgair 8y ago
  Related, about 1 month after Parkland: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593531945/gun-trained-teacher-accidentally-shoots-gun-in-calif-high-school-classroom https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593531945... "A 17-year-old student was struck in the neck, according to his father, Fermin Gonzales III, who spoke to Monterey County Weekly. "He was going to go to his next class, but he was pulling out metal fragments," Gonzales said of his son. "It was a soft metal." "Nobody from the office came in and looked at what had happened," he alleged." (Struck in the neck from shrapnel, fyi) "In a series of tweets, he (Donny) said, "20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to ... immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions ... Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A 'gun free' school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!""
chris_mc 8y ago
>This is what happens if you just cower and do nothing You sure? Because even when I was in the military, they trained us to respond to security events by locking our area down rather than running into the fight unless we were designated responders. Sounds to me like the cops just wanted to fire their fancy training pellet guns at someone.
- smacktoward 8y ago
  It's almost like there are a lot of local LEOs who just get off on wielding power over helpless people.
- mplewis 8y ago
  You don't have to run into the fight, but your odds of survival in a shooting are often better if you run away and try to escape.
  - chris_mc 8y ago
    Good point, but my point was the message wasn't clear, it just seemed like cruelty from the cops.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Don't forget to run in a zig-zag fashion if you're being shot at...
sgtnoodle 8y ago
This whole situation is absurd, and the idea of passing a law explicitly banning intentionally injuring a teacher during a training drill is the cherry on top. It sounds like this whole training activity is being run by idiots that don't actually know anything about or respect gun safety. Shooting someone unexpectedly with an air soft gun is already illegal. If the teachers signed a liability waiver making it okay, it's on the teachers for willingly participating in a clearly stupid and dangerous activity. If they didn't, then the injured teachers should hire a lawyer and sue...
- magduf 8y ago
  >If the teachers signed a liability waiver making it okay, it's on the teachers for willingly participating in a clearly stupid and dangerous activity. If they didn't, then the injured teachers should hire a lawyer and sue... I have to disagree here. Signing a waiver isn't iron-clad in court. You can't just sign a waiver saying it's OK for someone to shoot you, or do anything else illegal to you. Unless these teachers were clearly warned that this would injure them and draw blood, they have good cause to sue, and even if they were warned that way, they can still sue, arguing they were afraid for their jobs. I'd like to see these teachers sue the bejesus out of this school district. It's absolutely incredible that anyone thought this was a good idea, and if no one goes to jail for it, the local government clearly deserves to pay dearly for it.
scottlamb 8y ago
"During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles - resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn. ... The Indiana State Teachers Association is lobbying lawmakers to add language prohibiting teachers from being shot with any sort of ammunition to a school safety bill working its way through the Statehouse." I feel like existing laws should cover this. If they need a new law so specific to this situation, I'd worry there's nothing covering many other situations. Can they press charges for assault? That'd send a clear message.
- stephenhuey 8y ago
  This sounds like an initiative dreamed up by Dwight on The Office.
- lilbobbytables 8y ago
  Taking it back about a million steps, did they know this was a drill? Having anyone think they're being executed is insane trauma. And if they did know, what is the point of shooting them with pellets?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure existing criminal and civil laws in most jurisdictions adequately address shooting people with projectiles without consent and outside of reasonable self defense, or conspiring with, soliciting, or procuring others to do so, whether or not in the context of an employment relationship. And if they don't in Indiana, then a limited fix for teachers isn't the solution needed.
- mnm1 8y ago
  The cops will probably claim they felt in danger for their lives in this drill and the prosecutor will refuse to bring charges. Just another day at the office for these scumbags.
ryanmarsh 8y ago
Controversial opinion from someone with extensive experience with assault weapon violence. GOOD The current "shelter in place" model of active shooter drills KILLS CHILDREN. In combat we had another name for "shelter in place"... "die in place". People must be taught to fight back or flee. They must because it is not instinctive. Most of us were raised in relatively peaceful societies and have a school yard/Hollywood understanding of violence. For those who haven't seen the Christchurch video, the killer was ALMOST taken out by one lone person who rushed him while his back was turned. Sadly, this brave soul was alone in his efforts and perished. He came literally within inches of getting the drop on the shooter. Had there been a second brave soul with him the shooting could have ended with far less death. Two unarmed adults in close quarters can absolutely disarm one person. In a fight, two are four times as effective as one. If someone is attacking you there are two options, run or fight. Hiding in a room with no exits is to wait for death, as evidenced by every eyewitness account we've ever heard on the news, "I heard the shooting in the other room, I knew we were next". From a tactical point of view a school/church shooting is a de facto "raid". There are principles of conducting and defending against a raid. The active shooter drills I've seen are in total ignorance of these principles.
- ameister14 8y ago
  Whether you disagree with the practice of sheltering in place or not, it still doesn't seem like a good idea to mock execute teachers. You don't need to get shot to get training.
  - ryanmarsh 8y ago
    Unfortunately such training is for the limbic system, so pain and fear are required. The limbic system doesn't speak English and cannot reason.
    - bootlooped 8y ago
      I think it's a little absurd to think that shooting somebody with a pellet gun once is going to benefit them in an active shooter situation. With repeated training, maybe, but this is something that is never going to happen again.
24gttghh 8y ago
Why not have school-wide martial arts training or something instead? Empower the populace, and discourage people from attempting it in the first place. "An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure" as they say... These shelter in place drills are addressing a symptom, and not the cause of violence.
- magduf 8y ago
  Martial arts are pretty useless when some nut has an assault rifle and other firearms at hand. This isn't a Hollywood movie.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - sprucely 8y ago
    A Hollywood caricature of martial arts might be useless. But my understanding of some martial arts is that they emphasize keeping a cool head, awareness of surroundings, deescalation and evasion over violent confrontation. Being even somewhat competent in those skills could prove valuable in an active shooter situation.
    - 24gttghh 8y ago
      Exactly. The hardest part about martial arts in my opinion is the state of mind necessary to react to a situation appropriately.
- jakeogh 8y ago
  It's not about preparing anyone. The (sometimes unannounced) murder drills are about learned helplessness. I know of instances where it was done to special-needs students. I find it difficult to articulate how much it pisses me off. Teachers are each responsible for a priceless group of people, if they individually would like the option to defend themselves and their students they should get the proper training and carry a firearm.
deogeo 8y ago
Title is misleading - the teachers knew as soon as they were shot.
dariusj18 8y ago
That guy in the vest in the top image from Sioux Falls looks pretty chipper.
wl 8y ago
I've had occasion to participate in an active shooter exercise using simunitions. It was for police and EMS to practice their response. All participants were given safety gear, informed of the risks, and signed a waiver. I can't imagine not being given the proper safety gear and not being briefed about the exercise beforehand.
gpuhacker 8y ago
I'm from Europe. I mostly clicked on the link to find out what a shooter drill is. I'm baffled by the article and the comments in this thread. Having to have drills for school shootings is apparently considered a normal part of life in the US.
- dx87 8y ago
  It's not. I don't know anyone that's ever been through an active shooter drill. The closest I know of is the college my wife taught at had an optional hour long seminar for teachers.
  - cribbles 8y ago
    Nearly 95 percent of public schools had lockdown drills as of 2015-16.[1] I don't know anyone who's been through one either, but I'm an adult, and our generation just missed the cutoff. [1] https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017122.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017122.pdf, quoted in https://medium.com/s/youthnow/the-response-to-school-shootings-may-be-a-misfire-active-shooter-drills-teachers-students-6acb56418062 https://medium.com/s/youthnow/the-response-to-school-shootin....
    - Duladian 8y ago
      I went through the public school system and I remember having lockdown drills from 1997 onward. Teachers just locked the doors and continued teaching until the all clear was announced and they unlocked the door. In 2014 I was working IT for a private high school which had an active shooter drill on a yearly basis. I was told they started it two years prior because a student came onto campus with a handgun. Both in southern California.
  - MFLoon 8y ago
    Sadly you're mistaken. Not many current American adults experienced them growing up even though school shootings have been happening for decades, but in recent years they've started to become as commonplace as fire drills in American primary schools. "Nine out of ten public schools now drill students and teachers to respond to mass shootings, according to the National Center for Education Statistics." [regrettably via Vox: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/16/17016382/school-shooting-drills-training https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/16/17016382/s... but still, seems legit]
arcticbull 8y ago
You know, there are countries where this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Like, all of them. Know how many such drills we had in Canada? Zero. Probably because most guns are illegal so we don’t need them. That the solution isn’t gun control but instead making it illegal to shoot teachers unexpectedly with airsoft rifles is evidence of how insanely beyond the pail US gun policy and the whole discourse has become. New Zealand had a shooting, six days later, gun control. That’s how you solve the problem. Anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Probably because most guns are illegal so we don’t need them. I saw a YouTube video from a few years back. A Canadian walked into a gun store co-located with a gas station and bought a semi auto rifle. I also recall a more recent video from one of my subscribed YouTubers firing a different semi-auto rifle. I don't think your logic really holds up to the facts.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    It’s no YouTube video haha but Wikipedia has a pretty good description of the rules [1]. Everyone needs a license, long guns you’re free to own unregistered, everything else requires registration. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Canada https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Canada
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      So if people can get a license and go and buy semi-auto long guns, which you say, thus corroborating what I recall seeing on YouTube, your logic doesn't really hold up.
- monsterbash506 8y ago
  Ah, remember when all that gun control prevented a group of armed terrorists from massacreing nearly 100 people in Paris? Or when Brazil abolished private firearm ownership - did that make the country any safer? It seems to be the opposite - firearm homicides increased to over 60,000+ yearly (compared to 10,000-15,000 in the US anually.) The US is far safer than it was in the late 80s/early 90s when barely anybody owned dreaded "assault weapons" and when concealed carry wasn't a thing. More guns = less crime. Homicide rates in the northern US are comparable to that of Canada.
jostmey 8y ago
Low pay, rowdy students... what else can we do to make teacher's lives miserable. I know, let's shot them with things.
mnm1 8y ago
What's the point of these drills? It's not like the cops are going to go into a school with an active shooter and stop him. They'll just wait outside while the children get killed and hope the shooter kills himself like in every other school shooting. Or maybe they like to practice murdering teachers and other innocent people since they think it's part of their job? Seems pretty insane the school would let them carry out their sick fantasies this way.

52 points by smacktoward 8y ago

The panicked, reckless nonsense of "active shooter drills" is eventually going to get someone actually killed. (Compare: the DEA agent who shot himself while talking to a classroom about gun safety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNa5n2I_DUw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNa5n2I_DUw https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/safety-first/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/safety-first/ )

scott_s 8y ago
Some of the ones which are done during the school day, involving students, sound horrific: Active-Shooter Drills Are Tragically Misguided, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/active-shooter-drills-erika-christakis/580426/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/active-...
- AWildC182 8y ago
  This feels like a weird thing to say but exposing students (or anyone) to this seems like a really bad idea. By letting them experience that kind of terror, I feel it may give anyone with sociopathic tendencies 'ideas' and may influence them to seek that kind of control over others. We're all just the sum of our experiences and giving young impressionable kids terrifying experiences in the pursuit of protecting them from something that is statistically incredibly unlikely seems like a good way to make it statistically less incredibly unlikely.
  - gumby 8y ago
    I believe terrorizing the population into compliance is the point. I don't think you have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      This puts the terrorist and the government firmly on the same side. Wasn't that the terrorists intention all along?
      - gumby 8y ago
        each depends on the other.
    - blattimwind 8y ago
      Obey & Survive
  - jka 8y ago
    It's not weird to say; that assessment makes sense to me and I'm fairly sure it would to others as well. Sociopathic kids will use the events and memories from the drills as triggers to intimidate and remind their peers of the threat - or as you say, even further as inspiration for actual attacks. And I'd be willing to bet there are some unusual psychological characteristics of the folks who perform these drills and arrange them - does a normal-minded person really want to teach others what it's like to live in threat of imminent death? All of this time and money should go to reducing the possibility of shootings occurring in the first place, and reducing the cycles of hurt which lead to them, rather than re-enacting and normalizing them.
    - dashundchen 8y ago
      Anecdotal but the mentality and culture of those I know who work in law enforcement in the US is quite frightening. Referring to fellow citizens as civilians as if they were separate from them, obsessions with guns and military equipment, and maybe most visibly telling, mixing "blue line" symbols with things like "The Punisher" logo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punisher > The character is an Italian-American[4][5] vigilante who employs murder, kidnapping, extortion, coercion, threats of violence, and torture in his campaign against crime. Driven by the deaths of his wife and two children who were killed by the mob for witnessing a killing in New York City's Central Park, the Punisher wages a one-man war on the mob and all violent criminals in general while employing the use of various firearms.[6] His family's killers were the first to be slain.[7] A war veteran and a United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper, Castle is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, guerrilla warfare, and marksmanship.[4][5] > The Punisher's brutal nature and willingness to kill made him a novel character in mainstream American comic books when he debuted in 1974. By the late 1980s, the Punisher was part of a wave of psychologically-troubled antiheroes.
koolba 8y ago
Why the hell is the gun loaded?!
- AWildC182 8y ago
  Why was it even real? It's a school. If you really need to do demonstrations, get a plastic prop gun.
  - hippich 8y ago
    I think it was the best kind of demonstration how dangerous guns are, that even DEA agent managed to literally shoot himself in the foot. I only hope it was not done on purpose.
    - wl 8y ago
      It's not as if the pistol malfunctioned. If the agent had kept his booger hook off the bang switch, everything would have been fine.
  - marzell 8y ago
    Reminds me of DARE when they'd show a vial of crack. A picture would have been sufficient.
- wl 8y ago
  He probably carries a pistol with him everywhere and standard practice is to keep it loaded with a round chambered. If demonstrating safe handling were necessary, he probably should have brought another pistol and kept his carry weapon holstered. In any case, he should have cleared the weapon before his demonstration and kept it pointed in a safe direction.
ronsor 8y ago
That is terribly ironic. Why did he use a loaded gun again.
Balgair 8y ago
Related, about 1 month after Parkland: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593531945/gun-trained-teacher-accidentally-shoots-gun-in-calif-high-school-classroom https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593531945... "A 17-year-old student was struck in the neck, according to his father, Fermin Gonzales III, who spoke to Monterey County Weekly. "He was going to go to his next class, but he was pulling out metal fragments," Gonzales said of his son. "It was a soft metal." "Nobody from the office came in and looked at what had happened," he alleged." (Struck in the neck from shrapnel, fyi) "In a series of tweets, he (Donny) said, "20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to ... immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions ... Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A 'gun free' school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!""

chris_mc 8y ago

>This is what happens if you just cower and do nothing You sure? Because even when I was in the military, they trained us to respond to security events by locking our area down rather than running into the fight unless we were designated responders. Sounds to me like the cops just wanted to fire their fancy training pellet guns at someone.

smacktoward 8y ago
It's almost like there are a lot of local LEOs who just get off on wielding power over helpless people.
mplewis 8y ago
You don't have to run into the fight, but your odds of survival in a shooting are often better if you run away and try to escape.
- chris_mc 8y ago
  Good point, but my point was the message wasn't clear, it just seemed like cruelty from the cops.
- magduf 8y ago
  Don't forget to run in a zig-zag fashion if you're being shot at...

sgtnoodle 8y ago

This whole situation is absurd, and the idea of passing a law explicitly banning intentionally injuring a teacher during a training drill is the cherry on top. It sounds like this whole training activity is being run by idiots that don't actually know anything about or respect gun safety. Shooting someone unexpectedly with an air soft gun is already illegal. If the teachers signed a liability waiver making it okay, it's on the teachers for willingly participating in a clearly stupid and dangerous activity. If they didn't, then the injured teachers should hire a lawyer and sue...

magduf 8y ago
>If the teachers signed a liability waiver making it okay, it's on the teachers for willingly participating in a clearly stupid and dangerous activity. If they didn't, then the injured teachers should hire a lawyer and sue... I have to disagree here. Signing a waiver isn't iron-clad in court. You can't just sign a waiver saying it's OK for someone to shoot you, or do anything else illegal to you. Unless these teachers were clearly warned that this would injure them and draw blood, they have good cause to sue, and even if they were warned that way, they can still sue, arguing they were afraid for their jobs. I'd like to see these teachers sue the bejesus out of this school district. It's absolutely incredible that anyone thought this was a good idea, and if no one goes to jail for it, the local government clearly deserves to pay dearly for it.

scottlamb 8y ago

"During active shooter drill, four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles - resulting in injuries to the extent that welts appeared, and blood was drawn. ... The Indiana State Teachers Association is lobbying lawmakers to add language prohibiting teachers from being shot with any sort of ammunition to a school safety bill working its way through the Statehouse." I feel like existing laws should cover this. If they need a new law so specific to this situation, I'd worry there's nothing covering many other situations. Can they press charges for assault? That'd send a clear message.

stephenhuey 8y ago
This sounds like an initiative dreamed up by Dwight on The Office.
lilbobbytables 8y ago
Taking it back about a million steps, did they know this was a drill? Having anyone think they're being executed is insane trauma. And if they did know, what is the point of shooting them with pellets?
dragonwriter 8y ago
I'm pretty sure existing criminal and civil laws in most jurisdictions adequately address shooting people with projectiles without consent and outside of reasonable self defense, or conspiring with, soliciting, or procuring others to do so, whether or not in the context of an employment relationship. And if they don't in Indiana, then a limited fix for teachers isn't the solution needed.
mnm1 8y ago
The cops will probably claim they felt in danger for their lives in this drill and the prosecutor will refuse to bring charges. Just another day at the office for these scumbags.

ryanmarsh 8y ago

Controversial opinion from someone with extensive experience with assault weapon violence. GOOD The current "shelter in place" model of active shooter drills KILLS CHILDREN. In combat we had another name for "shelter in place"... "die in place". People must be taught to fight back or flee. They must because it is not instinctive. Most of us were raised in relatively peaceful societies and have a school yard/Hollywood understanding of violence. For those who haven't seen the Christchurch video, the killer was ALMOST taken out by one lone person who rushed him while his back was turned. Sadly, this brave soul was alone in his efforts and perished. He came literally within inches of getting the drop on the shooter. Had there been a second brave soul with him the shooting could have ended with far less death. Two unarmed adults in close quarters can absolutely disarm one person. In a fight, two are four times as effective as one. If someone is attacking you there are two options, run or fight. Hiding in a room with no exits is to wait for death, as evidenced by every eyewitness account we've ever heard on the news, "I heard the shooting in the other room, I knew we were next". From a tactical point of view a school/church shooting is a de facto "raid". There are principles of conducting and defending against a raid. The active shooter drills I've seen are in total ignorance of these principles.

ameister14 8y ago
Whether you disagree with the practice of sheltering in place or not, it still doesn't seem like a good idea to mock execute teachers. You don't need to get shot to get training.
- ryanmarsh 8y ago
  Unfortunately such training is for the limbic system, so pain and fear are required. The limbic system doesn't speak English and cannot reason.
  - bootlooped 8y ago
    I think it's a little absurd to think that shooting somebody with a pellet gun once is going to benefit them in an active shooter situation. With repeated training, maybe, but this is something that is never going to happen again.

24gttghh 8y ago

Why not have school-wide martial arts training or something instead? Empower the populace, and discourage people from attempting it in the first place. "An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure" as they say... These shelter in place drills are addressing a symptom, and not the cause of violence.

magduf 8y ago
Martial arts are pretty useless when some nut has an assault rifle and other firearms at hand. This isn't a Hollywood movie.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sprucely 8y ago
  A Hollywood caricature of martial arts might be useless. But my understanding of some martial arts is that they emphasize keeping a cool head, awareness of surroundings, deescalation and evasion over violent confrontation. Being even somewhat competent in those skills could prove valuable in an active shooter situation.
  - 24gttghh 8y ago
    Exactly. The hardest part about martial arts in my opinion is the state of mind necessary to react to a situation appropriately.
jakeogh 8y ago
It's not about preparing anyone. The (sometimes unannounced) murder drills are about learned helplessness. I know of instances where it was done to special-needs students. I find it difficult to articulate how much it pisses me off. Teachers are each responsible for a priceless group of people, if they individually would like the option to defend themselves and their students they should get the proper training and carry a firearm.

deogeo 8y ago

Title is misleading - the teachers knew as soon as they were shot.

dariusj18 8y ago

That guy in the vest in the top image from Sioux Falls looks pretty chipper.

wl 8y ago

I've had occasion to participate in an active shooter exercise using simunitions. It was for police and EMS to practice their response. All participants were given safety gear, informed of the risks, and signed a waiver. I can't imagine not being given the proper safety gear and not being briefed about the exercise beforehand.

gpuhacker 8y ago

I'm from Europe. I mostly clicked on the link to find out what a shooter drill is. I'm baffled by the article and the comments in this thread. Having to have drills for school shootings is apparently considered a normal part of life in the US.

dx87 8y ago
It's not. I don't know anyone that's ever been through an active shooter drill. The closest I know of is the college my wife taught at had an optional hour long seminar for teachers.
- cribbles 8y ago
  Nearly 95 percent of public schools had lockdown drills as of 2015-16.[1] I don't know anyone who's been through one either, but I'm an adult, and our generation just missed the cutoff. [1] https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017122.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2017/2017122.pdf, quoted in https://medium.com/s/youthnow/the-response-to-school-shootings-may-be-a-misfire-active-shooter-drills-teachers-students-6acb56418062 https://medium.com/s/youthnow/the-response-to-school-shootin....
  - Duladian 8y ago
    I went through the public school system and I remember having lockdown drills from 1997 onward. Teachers just locked the doors and continued teaching until the all clear was announced and they unlocked the door. In 2014 I was working IT for a private high school which had an active shooter drill on a yearly basis. I was told they started it two years prior because a student came onto campus with a handgun. Both in southern California.
- MFLoon 8y ago
  Sadly you're mistaken. Not many current American adults experienced them growing up even though school shootings have been happening for decades, but in recent years they've started to become as commonplace as fire drills in American primary schools. "Nine out of ten public schools now drill students and teachers to respond to mass shootings, according to the National Center for Education Statistics." [regrettably via Vox: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/16/17016382/school-shooting-drills-training https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/16/17016382/s... but still, seems legit]

arcticbull 8y ago

You know, there are countries where this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Like, all of them. Know how many such drills we had in Canada? Zero. Probably because most guns are illegal so we don’t need them. That the solution isn’t gun control but instead making it illegal to shoot teachers unexpectedly with airsoft rifles is evidence of how insanely beyond the pail US gun policy and the whole discourse has become. New Zealand had a shooting, six days later, gun control. That’s how you solve the problem. Anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.

stcredzero 8y ago
Probably because most guns are illegal so we don’t need them. I saw a YouTube video from a few years back. A Canadian walked into a gun store co-located with a gas station and bought a semi auto rifle. I also recall a more recent video from one of my subscribed YouTubers firing a different semi-auto rifle. I don't think your logic really holds up to the facts.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  It’s no YouTube video haha but Wikipedia has a pretty good description of the rules [1]. Everyone needs a license, long guns you’re free to own unregistered, everything else requires registration. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Canada https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Canada
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    So if people can get a license and go and buy semi-auto long guns, which you say, thus corroborating what I recall seeing on YouTube, your logic doesn't really hold up.
monsterbash506 8y ago
Ah, remember when all that gun control prevented a group of armed terrorists from massacreing nearly 100 people in Paris? Or when Brazil abolished private firearm ownership - did that make the country any safer? It seems to be the opposite - firearm homicides increased to over 60,000+ yearly (compared to 10,000-15,000 in the US anually.) The US is far safer than it was in the late 80s/early 90s when barely anybody owned dreaded "assault weapons" and when concealed carry wasn't a thing. More guns = less crime. Homicide rates in the northern US are comparable to that of Canada.

jostmey 8y ago

Low pay, rowdy students... what else can we do to make teacher's lives miserable. I know, let's shot them with things.

mnm1 8y ago

What's the point of these drills? It's not like the cops are going to go into a school with an active shooter and stop him. They'll just wait outside while the children get killed and hope the shooter kills himself like in every other school shooting. Or maybe they like to practice murdering teachers and other innocent people since they think it's part of their job? Seems pretty insane the school would let them carry out their sick fantasies this way.