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You can't make this stuff up . I wonder if they will have rock training? Rock holsters? Every rock has a serial number?

Full story here.

".....A rural school district in Pennsylvania is arming teachers and students with buckets of rocks as a last resort should an armed intruder burst in, the superintendent said Friday.

Every classroom in the district about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia has a 5-gallon bucket of river stones, said Blue Mountain School District Superintendent David Helsel.

"We always strive to find new ways to keep our students safe," Helsel told The Associated Press in a telephone interview, adding that the rocks are one small part of the district's overall security plan.

Throwing rocks is more effective than just crawling under desks and waiting, and it gives students and teachers a chance to defend themselves, he said......"

Ah darn, somebody beat me to it. Mods - lock this please.

This act redefines the meaning of STUPID and shows that a Ph.D is not what it's cracked up to be. Furthermore, it brings the question of that school district's voter/parent intelligence level into question.

There's more to this story, and I think the superintendent is being mocked unfairly.

This district reportedly has armed security and has instituted ALICE training (details here.) These are thoughtful and commendable steps. However, not every classroom will have an armed protector.

Given those circumstances, if a classroom shelter is breached by an active shooter, throwing heavy river rocks at speed from multiple directions is better than lying passively, throwing books, or trying to go hand to hand.

It's not best, but it's better, and better is sometimes all you have.

Even in schools that authorize armed staff, there will always be classrooms with teachers who are not armed, and the shooter may get access to some students before an armed staff member can intervene.

The real issue here appears to be the news article in the initial post that was crafted to ignore the other logical things the district had done to protect students in order to make the superintendent look unjustifiably stupid.

Excaliber wrote:There's more to this story, and I think the superintendent is being mocked unfairly.

This district reportedly has armed security and has instituted ALICE training (details here.) However, not every classroom will have an armed protector.

Given those circumstances, if a classroom shelter is breached by an active shooter, throwing heavy river rocks at speed from multiple directions is better than lying passively, throwing books, or trying to go hand to hand.

It's not best, but it's better, and better is sometimes all you have.

Even in schools that authorize armed staff, there will always be classrooms with teachers who are not armed, and the shooter may get access to some students before an armed staff member can intervene.

I wonder where in the classroom the bucket of rocks will be placed for strategic advantage.

If a student slings a rock at an active shooter and misses then surely he would become an instant target. Adding LEO's and arming teachers is the best solution in my opinion.

I'm not currently a member so I'm take one.

Take Down Sicko wrote:If a student slings a rock at an active shooter and misses then surely he would become an instant target. Adding LEO's and arming teachers is the best solution in my opinion.

I don't believe there is a single one size fits all approach, Security needs to be approached as a multi-front issue.

• Allowing staff CHL carry
  Hiring School Resouce Officers.
  Controlling entry egress.
  Identifying dangerous, unstable students.
  Adopting the Run, Hide and fight concepts.
  Authorities following up and reporting to the NICS systems.
  Yes, and even rocks in the classroom

None of these are a perfect solution, however together they can reduce the threat.

Take Down Sicko wrote:If a student slings a rock at an active shooter and misses then surely he would become an instant target. Adding LEO's and arming teachers is the best solution in my opinion.

He would have been a target before he threw the rock - no change there.

The idea isn't one student throwing one rock - it's lots of students throwing rocks all at the same time from different directions at the shooter's head. I've done experiments that show the shooter can't process trajectories or move quickly enough to dodge them all. A single hit on target would likely be disabling or would create a window of opportunity for follow up attacks.

AndyC wrote:Yeah. As any security person will tell you, defense in depth is far more successful than relying on one layer alone.

Absolutely correct - the more properly configured layers, the greater the chance of success and the less the chance of failure.

My wife was a Professor at a small private University which opted out of campus carry. My wife was placed on lockdown twice in her last year there and all she had was a can of bear spray and a Fire Extinguisher. She commented that she would have welcomed a bucket of rocks. We had a BP officer here killed by a thrown rock. The idea of only having a bucket of rocks is stupid. However, if that is all they will allow you to have......well you darn sure don't want to be dodging rocks I hurl at you.

Okay, multilayer defense, I get that but rocks as the last layer? How do you distribute a pail of rocks in a crisis? I appreciate their thinking outside of the box but they need a better last layer.