We as Americans will address anything and everything, except root causes.
This is cynically capitalist and just theater anyway. Any plates that reasonably approximate NIJ III+ would be prohibitively heavy for children to carry throughout the day, if they actually wore them at all. The whiteboard/shield combo is my favorite one here: almost reasonable!
I dunno, you shoulda seen my backpack by high school, shit was a lethal weapon.
sounds like the children need to be stronger, and more r&D needs to go into making lighter bulletproof equipment.
First: There is no current NIJ specification for III+. It’s either IIIa, III, or IV. III+ is a marketing gimmick for plate that stop all level III threats, but don’t stop all level IV threats.
Second: I guess that depends on what you count as ‘prohibitively heavy’. UHMW plates that are listed as III+ by the manufacturer (again, there is not NIJ specification for this) can be in the 5# range per plate for a small. My backpack in middle school was easily 25# since I never used my locker, so ???.
This is one of those things that, compared against the number of students in schools in the US, is so vanishingly rare that it’s not even worth worrying about on an individual basis. The 230 school shootings in a decade–23 per year–is divided among roughly 129,000 schools. The odds that any given school will experience a shooting in a given year is about .017%. Spending huge amounts of money on it, rather than things that actually make a real difference (like, say, qualified psychologist working as school counselors) is asinine.
Do I have body armor? Yup. Do I use it all the time? Nope. The only reason I have it is for division rules; I do armored competition division for PCSL, along with other gun run and brutality type events, so I gotta have it to make division rules. There’s no way in hell I’d wear the shit on the daily unless I was in an active war zone.
The most important thing about children dying is how can we profit off of it?
Sell weapons
oh no kids dying
sell armor
???
Profit
Create your own market opportunities!
Failed state
War is a racket, even if it’s against your own people. Gun culture and the shootings epidemic, and the subsequent industries that have sprung up as a result like this one, are massively profitable for a small group of people who either work in government or have it financially by the balls via “lobbying” (bribery), and they will always prioritise that profit over your life (or the lives of innocent children, for that matter). Every, single, time.
not all children are innocent
I’ve considered getting a bulletproof jacket or hoodie. But it’s so expensive, and can only really be worn half the year.
The stuff like backpack inserts seems like a racket. How likely are you to be wearing the backpack and get shot from behind?
How likely are you to be wearing the backpack and get shot from behind?
Not trying to say it’s not a racket but the backpack could easily be used to provide cover in all sorts of situations. It’s not like it can only be handled on your back, you can flip it around, hold it over your head, get down in the fetal position and hope it covers you enough to keep little johnny from shredding you with daddy’s ar. Pretty versatile actually.
One of the graphics showed just that. And it might work if the attacker decides not to walk four feet left/right to get a new angle.
I mean, if I were a school shooter, I doubt I’d realize you didn’t actually get hit, I’d probably be looking for new targets
I guess it’s really down the the mindset of the attacker. Going for a high body count for internet clout would cause that. Beef with a specific class for percieved wrongs, probably not.
anything other than take away gun i guessIt’s to the point of grifting now.This pre-dystopia phase is killing me. Can we just fast forward to the full-on Mad Max post-collapse era?
As the founding fathers wanted.
Go free market! Yay!
Jesus Christ, what a load of crap. No tragedy is horrible enough to keep people from wanting to profit.
I’ll buy those door wedges as prudent and cost effective, as well as safety drills: being able to react to an emergency can be important. Does every school do that yet
But do you know what I have seen in every school my kids have gone to? There’s always a door propped open, broken, or trivial to bypass the lock. Why don’t we start there?
starting with a burocratic system is rarely a cost effective strategy.
