Our second contestant for the 2015 Concealed Nation Darwin Award in just two days goes to a middle school in Valley, Alabama where officials have a new idea on how to stop an active shooter.
Have the kids throw canned goods at them.
It’s part of active shooter response training offered by the ALICE Training Institute, a company founded by a former police officer and former elementary school principal.
“We realize at first this may seem odd; however, it is a practice that would catch an intruder off-guard,” the letter reads, according to CNN affiliate WRBL. “The canned food item could stun the intruder or even knock him out until the police arrive. The canned food item will give the students a sense of empowerment to protect themselves and will make them feel secure in case an intruder enters the classroom.”
The school, W.F. Burns Middle School, sent parents a letter asking that their children start bringing canned goods to school to use in such an event.
The idea is this: The main goal is to get the kids to safety, obviously. However if an active shooter were in the school and there is no time, students and faculty would do the normal procedure of securing and barricading themselves in their respective classrooms. Then, if the shooter entered a room, that’s when a barrage of canned vegetables would start flying toward the gunman.
They seem to be forgetting that this will draw attention to the children who are chucking the cans. A better name for this “training” would be something along the lines of, “First one to hit the gunman gets shot!”
Do they really want to protect the children? Here’s Concealed Nation’s alternative to the can-chucking:
You know those faculty members who have concealed carry permits and carry during the rest of their lives when they aren’t in the ‘gun free zone’ school where they work? Let them carry while they work. Let them have a real chance at stopping a gunman by fighting back with the same force that he or she would be using.
If no faculty members have a permit or carry, let them choose to do so if they want to. Let them train. Let them have a true fighting chance against a gunman.
Throwing canned goods? Where do they come up with this stuff?
