Big_Ben
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15253321/
BURLESON, Texas - Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they've got  books, pencils, legs and arms.“Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success,â€Â
How stupid can you get? I mean REALLY?
gramarye
In Exile
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I think this program is actually defensible, given the circumstances likely to be present in a school invasion in recent years.
If a gunman ever does invade that school, it's likely that kids will be killed; however, they do have a point that increasing numbers of school-hostage situations are ending violently already. We're seeing murder-suicides more often, for example, where an attacker already intends to kill several students (perhaps as many as possible) before killing himself. The usual police tactics to negotiate a surrender with such an individual are bound to be less effective than under the "traditional" hostage situation where the attacker actually wants something, including a clean getaway. If someone's determined to go down in a blaze of glory and take you with him, the sit-tight option starts to look much less attractive because it doesn't matter if you antagonize him or not.
There's also the prospect that publicizing that this is what students and teachers at this high school are being trained to do will make any prospective hostage-taker with a shred of sense think twice (and maybe pick a more pliant school as a target). Someone with demands is not likely going to be able to get them because there will be no time for negotiations with the police or anyone else. Someone intending a murder-suicide including specific targets might well not be able to get to them, even if he does kill others. Someone intending a random killing spree might get his first few shots off, but likely few or no more. In addition, there is strength in numbers: where one student might never actually rush the gunman alone, for fear that they'd get killed and accomplish nothing, it would be much easier to do so as part of a group, and much easier to do so as a group if they were trained in advance to do so (otherwise it would be pretty darn hard to "organize" on the spot).
The student who noted that it's harder to hit a moving target does in fact have a point. I've fired a gun a few times in my life; not many. It's harder than it looks in movies. Obviously, if the prospective attacker is actually an experienced shooter, things could get very ugly. However, my general sense (sans statistics) is that most of these school invaders really are inexperienced shooters who've simply gotten their hands on guns and are counting on hitting terrified, stationary targets at point-blank range. Former SEALs aren't shooting up high schools. Therefore, there's a real possibility that no one would be killed, and only a few wounded.
Obviously, the media and public opinion are going to make this controversial. There seems to be a tendency to see the death of anyone who fights back as an avoidable death (i.e., something that was the fault of the defender, not the invader) and the death of anyone who doesn't fight back but gets killed anyway as some kind of accident or tragedy, not their fault. In addition, I admit that even I, as a supporter of a program like this, at least in concept, get nervous at the thought of a 14-year-old girl like the one quoted in the article trying to take down a grown gunman; however, in practice, my guess is that it would be more likely some of the bigger boys in the area that would actually try to take the attacker down, and even in seventh grade, there are some that are really starting to fill out their adult frames, and might not be at the kind of physical disadvantage that people are likely thinking. Moreover, I don't think the "sit tight and let the professionals handle it" model has as much appeal as it used to, after some very high-profile failures and a string of cases of murder-suicides where the attacker has no intention of letting others live whether they resist or not, and in fact has no intention of surviving the incident himself.
This is the kind of program where its success or failure will probably depend on the first time it's put to the test. It won't last over time if the first incident goes awry, and it will gain incredible legitimacy if the first test results in nobody killed and only a couple wounded. First impressions will count for everything. I won't hold my breath.
Coremodels
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I'm actually all for this...
Teaching a store clerk to cooperate is one thing, people entering a store with a gun want money and an easy exit...
People coming into a school with one are there to shoot people...period.
Coremodels
Really close to Explorer's Club.
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BTW, not sure if they're teaching Krav Maga...but if they are, this is something that could be very realistically done by 16 year old boys with amazing results in the case of a school gunman.
gramarye
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By 16 year old boys, absolutely; however, that tends to mean sophomores or juniors in high school. This is why I was a little worried that the author chose to quote a 7th-grade girl.
Most 16-year-old boys (and girls) have reached their adult heights, at the very least, and have largely filled out that frame as well. Seventh-graders can be pretty far along that curve, or they can still be pretty underdeveloped. Granted, seven or eight 7th-graders could overwhelm someone by sheer weight of numbers, but if you're looking at a situation where someone's likely to get hurt (just hopefully not fatally), you want to make sure that (a) whoever takes a hit in the leg or arm or shoulder or whatever is at least more likely to be tough enough to come through it, and, hopefully (b) whoever does finally land the first hit on the attacker through sheer weight of numbers makes it count.
Big_Ben
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I am very adamantly against this idea. I undestand your points completely and I do see your reasoning. I think the most general idea behind this is that people are going to die regardless, may as well fight back and hopefully save a few lives. The problem I see with that reasoning is to look at the number of deaths in school shootings. Columbine had 15 (I think), the Amish school shooting had 4, Pearl, MS had like 2-3, and most seem to be in the range of 2-4 deaths. Those 2-4 deaths come from practicing, run like hell and try and hide from him technique.
Here are the points that I see against this idea:
I think that having kids charge the gunman would be more likely to put MORE kids in the line of fire than the shooter would try and target otherwise.
Rushing a gunman before he starts shooting and tackling him may be a viable idea. What happens when everyone in the class stands up, starts moving toward the gunmen and he starts unloading round after round at the crowd. I can tell you that there won't be a single person that will rush into the line of direct fire of a gun. They would turn around and then try to hide. This would just anger the shooter more.
What happens if the shooter has something like an Uzi? The standard magazine for a Uzi SMG holds 25 rounds and it has a 600 rounds/min rate of fire. That means at full auto a shooter with an Uzi could unload 25 rounds in under 1 second. If students are scattered throughout a room and trying to hide behind desks, the chance that very many would be fatally wounded is very low. If the students are clustered together and rushing the attacker, 25 rounds would dessimate the group.
What happens if the shooter has a shotgun? A 12 gauge shotgun at 10 ft will kill the first person it hits with that person receiving probably 80% of the pellets. However that other 20% of pellets would be dispersed loosely over a 4 ft diameter circle. That means that 5-6 kids could take a couple of pellets. How many kids, even high school age, do you know that would still keep moving forward if hit by 2-3 BB's?
I just see this idea going very wrong in SOOOOO many ways. In the ideal situation it may be feasible and actually beneficial however I would never choose everyday kids to be the ones to decide if it is right to rush the attacker or not.
gramarye
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I see your points as well, and I do worry about the panic factor ... it does you no good if you only rush the gunman "halfway" and then turn around; that would be the worst of all possible outcomes. That would expose more students to harm and anger the gunman more. No argument there.
However, while the Columbine killers did have a TEC-9, I don't think the average school shooter is really packing an Uzi. Most are going to be holding low- to mid-caliber pistols. My guess is that that's the scenario this program has in mind.
Coremodels
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The Amish school is a bad example. The guy shot everyone he intended to shoot in that case, he just didn't kill them. He shot every single girl he kept.
Also, as to the Tec-9 in Columbine, I don't think it was modified...so basically it's just an automatic pistol with a really large clip.
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