The Right Idea

Yes! Someone finally has the right idea.

Article summary: Some schools are now teaching students to fight back when an armed invader breaks into the school. I'm hoping that this is a sign that the lessons from Columbine and Virginia Tech are finally getting though: When you have an entire school pitted against one or few armed individuals, the odds are in the favor of the school. While some students may be hurt or killed in taking down the armed attackers, massacres will -and have, repeatedly- result if people simply comply with the wishes of crazed gunmen. No one can shoot onto a classroom full of targets at once, especially if those targets are in the act of attacking.

Of course, some people are objecting:

“You’re telling kids to do what a tactical officer is trained to do, and they have a lot of guns and ballistic shields ... If my school was teaching that, I’d be upset, frankly.”

"If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who’s to blame ... How much common sense will a student have in a time of panic?"

So what is the alternative? As stated in the atricle; “At Columbine, teachers told students to get down and get on the floors, and gunmen went around and shot people on the floors,”...“Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success”...

I also hope that this is a sign of a backlash against the whole trend of wimpish appeasement that the American school system seems to have been following of late. Throughout my elementary and middle school years I was taught to appease violent bullies verbally and never lift a finger in self defense during a physical attack, because defending yourself was evil; I was taught that all bullies are bullies because they themselves are maltreated and therefore deserve to get away with anything. Until I actually researched the topic, I fully believed the Columbine apologists who popularized the (completely false) tale that the two gunmen went on a killing spree because they were bullied and excluded by their peers.

So on that cheery note, have a happy New Year.