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Tag: shooting

The Bullet-Proof Backpack

It’s the Tactical Assault Accessory All the Cool Kids Are Wearing

Aaaaand that was “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People, followed by the classic Boomtown Rats ballad “I Don’t Like Mondays.” We’re just two songs into our Calamity-on-Campus 3 o’clock joyride here on K-I-D-Z FM, where the fear — haha! I mean the fun! — never ever stops. We’ll be back, faster than a bullet, with Pearl Jam and “Jeremy” right after a word from our sponsor. Don’t touch that dial! … [Fade in ad spot.]

“Parents, remember back in your day, when all you needed for a successful start to the school year were some sharpened No. 2 pencils, a bitchin’ Trapper Keeper, and a brown paper bag that you could origami into sweet textbook covers?

“Well, those days are over, my friends.

“Ours is a dangerous world today where your adorable grade-schooler is as likely to be stung on the playground by a 9mm brass jacketed hollow point* as a common honeybee.

“Mass shootings are up — way up — as the people in Dayton, El Paso, and Gilroy will tell you. School campuses are no longer the safe, innocent spaces they used to be. That makes parenting tough. We get it! I mean, when you usher your nervous child into their classroom on the first day of school, hug them, and promise them it’ll be okay … and that you’ll see them at 3 o’clock … dammit, you want to mean it.

“And now you can! Thanks to the Bulletproof Backpack™.

Paranoid or Preventative?

It’s a typical day in classrooms across America. Students turn in last night’s homework, take their seats, open their notebooks, and settle in for a lesson in handwriting. Or calculating the diameter of a circle. Or avoiding being shot by a madman.

Schools from elementary to high school are now putting students through “lockdown drills” to rehearse what to do if someone starts shooting up the campus. Some have been practicing like this since Columbine; others only began after the Sandy Hook school massacre in December.

The drills usually begin with a loudspeaker announcement from the principal, after which teachers lock and/or barricade their classroom doors, close any blinds, and instruct their students to huddle in a corner and remain absolutely silent for 10, 15, or even 30 minutes. Sometimes staff members bang threateningly on classroom doors or fire blanks in the hall to add realism. One school had students lay down “dead” with fake blood.

“I cried the first time my son came home and told me about these,” says a friend of mine. “They told him, ‘If you’re in the bathroom or hall when the classroom doors are locked, find somewhere else to hide because the teachers won’t let you in.’ He was 9.”

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