Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

courierpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 97 posts

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#21

Post by jka »

AWildC182 wrote: post #9
scott_s wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the ones which are done during the school day, involving students, sound horrific: Active-Shooter Drills Are Tragically Misguided, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/active-...

This feels like a weird thing to say but exposing students (or anyone) to this seems like a really bad idea. By letting them experience that kind of terror, I feel it may give anyone with sociopathic tendencies 'ideas' and may influence them to seek that kind of control over others. We're all just the sum of our experiences and giving young impressionable kids terrifying experiences in the pursuit of protecting them…

It's not weird to say; that assessment makes sense to me and I'm fairly sure it would to others as well.

Sociopathic kids will use the events and memories from the drills as triggers to intimidate and remind their peers of the threat - or as you say, even further as inspiration for actual attacks.

And I'd be willing to bet there are some unusual psychological characteristics of the folks who perform these drills and arrange them - does a normal-minded person really want to teach others what it's like to live in threat of imminent death?

All of this time and money should go to reducing the possibility of shootings occurring in the first place, and reducing the cycles of hurt which lead to them, rather than re-enacting and normalizing them.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#23

Post by wl »

I've had occasion to participate in an active shooter exercise using simunitions. It was for police and EMS to practice their response. All participants were given safety gear, informed of the risks, and signed a waiver. I can't imagine not being given the proper safety gear and not being briefed about the exercise beforehand.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#24

Post by hippich »

AWildC182 wrote: post #10
koolba wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell is the gun loaded?!

Why was it even real? It's a school. If you really need to do demonstrations, get a plastic prop gun.

I think it was the best kind of demonstration how dangerous guns are, that even DEA agent managed to literally shoot himself in the foot. I only hope it was not done on purpose.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#25

Post by bootlooped »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #20
ameister14 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you disagree with the practice of sheltering in place or not, it still doesn't seem like a good idea to mock execute teachers. You don't need to get shot to get training.

Unfortunately such training is for the limbic system, so pain and fear are required. The limbic system doesn't speak English and cannot reason.

I think it's a little absurd to think that shooting somebody with a pellet gun once is going to benefit them in an active shooter situation. With repeated training, maybe, but this is something that is never going to happen again.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#26

Post by gpuhacker »

I'm from Europe. I mostly clicked on the link to find out what a shooter drill is. I'm baffled by the article and the comments in this thread. Having to have drills for school shootings is apparently considered a normal part of life in the US.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#27

Post by penagwin »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #20
ameister14 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you disagree with the practice of sheltering in place or not, it still doesn't seem like a good idea to mock execute teachers. You don't need to get shot to get training.

Unfortunately such training is for the limbic system, so pain and fear are required. The limbic system doesn't speak English and cannot reason.

Okay but we aren't training solders here, they took teachers, told them to kneel against the wall, and shot them in the back repeatedly without telling them what was about to happen.

These are elementary schoolteachers - they're job is to educate (and half baby-sit) children.

I'm not making any statement with training, I'm just saying the method here is inappropriate.

EDIT: Plus how is this training? Are they expected to "fight back"? Okay cool a pellet gun hurts - what's the point? A gun hurts more anyway - if it doesn't kill you.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#28

Post by arcticbull »

You know, there are countries where this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Like, all of them. Know how many such drills we had in Canada? Zero. Probably because most guns are illegal so we don’t need them.

That the solution isn’t gun control but instead making it illegal to shoot teachers unexpectedly with airsoft rifles is evidence of how insanely beyond the pail US gun policy and the whole discourse has become. New Zealand had a shooting, six days later, gun control. That’s how you solve the problem. Anything else is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#29

Post by chris_mc »

mplewis wrote: post #15
chris_mc wrote: post #3

>This is what happens if you just cower and do nothing You sure? Because even when I was in the military, they trained us to respond to security events by locking our area down rather than running into the fight unless we were designated responders. Sounds to me like the cops just wanted to fire their fancy training pellet guns at someone.

You don't have to run into the fight, but your odds of survival in a shooting are often better if you run away and try to escape.

Good point, but my point was the message wasn't clear, it just seemed like cruelty from the cops.

Re: Teachers unknowingly shot with plastic pellets during active shooter drills

#30

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

gumby wrote: post #11
AWildC182 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like a weird thing to say but exposing students (or anyone) to this seems like a really bad idea. By letting them experience that kind of terror, I feel it may give anyone with sociopathic tendencies 'ideas' and may influence them to seek that kind of control over others. We're all just the sum of our experiences and giving young impressionable kids terrifying experiences in the pursuit of protecting them…

I believe terrorizing the population into compliance is the point. I don't think you have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that.

This puts the terrorist and the government firmly on the same side.

Wasn't that the terrorists intention all along?

Post reply on HN