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| Texas School Tells Classes to Fight Back |
| 2006-10-13 |
| H/T Instapundit By JEFF CARLTON Associated Press Writer BURLESON, Texas (AP) -- 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 got - books, pencils, legs and arms. "Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success," said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools. That kind of fight-back advice is all but unheard of among schools, and some fear it will get children killed. But school officials in Burleson said they are drawing on the lessons learned from a string of disasters such as Columbine in 1999 and the Amish schoolhouse attack in Pennsylvania last week. The school system in this working-class suburb of about 26,000 is believed to be the first in the nation to train all its teachers and students to fight back, Browne said. At Burleson - which has 10 schools and about 8,500 students - the training covers various emergencies, such as tornadoes, fires and situations where first aid is required. Among the lessons: Use a belt as a sling for broken bones, and shoelaces make good tourniquets. Students are also instructed not to comply with a gunman's orders, and to take him down. Browne recommends students and teachers "react immediately to the sight of a gun by picking up anything and everything and throwing it at the head and body of the attacker and making as much noise as possible. Go toward him as fast as we can and bring them down." Response Options trains students and teachers to "lock onto the attacker's limbs and use their body weight," Browne said. Everyday classroom objects, such as paperbacks and pencils, can become weapons. "We show them they can win," he said. "The fact that someone walks into a classroom with a gun does not make them a god. Five or six seventh-grade kids and a 95-pound art teacher can basically challenge, bring down and immobilize a 200-pound man with a gun." The fight-back training parallels the change in thinking that has occurred since Sept. 11, when United Flight 93 made it clear that the usual advice during a hijacking - Don't try to be a hero, and no one will get hurt - no longer holds. Flight attendants and passengers are now encouraged to rush the cockpit. Similarly, women and youngsters are often told by safety experts to kick, scream and claw they way out during a rape attempt or a child-snatching. In 1998 in Oregon, a 17-year-old high school wrestling star with a bullet in his chest stopped a rampage by tackling a teenager who had opened fire in the cafeteria. The gunman killed two students, as well as his parents, and 22 other were wounded. Hilda Quiroz of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, said she knows of no other school system in the country that is offering fight-back training, and found the strategy at Burleson troubling. "If kids are saved, then this is the most wonderful thing in the world. If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who's to blame," she said. "How much common sense will a student have in a time of panic?" Terry Grisham, spokesman for the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department, said he, too, had concerns, though he had not seen details of the program. "You're telling kids to do what a tactical officer is trained to do, and they have a lot of guns and ballistic shields," he said. "If my school was teaching that, I'd be upset, frankly." Some students said they appreciate the training. "It's harder to hit a moving target than a target that is standing still," said 14-year-old Jessica Justice, who received the training over the summer during freshman orientation at Burleson High. William Lassiter, manager of the North Carolina-based Center for Prevention of School Violence, said past attacks indicate that fighting back, at least by teachers and staff, has its merits. "At Columbine, teachers told students to get down and get on the floors, and gunmen went around and shot people on the floors," Lassiter said. "I know this sounds chaotic and I know it doesn't sound like a great solution, but it's better than leaving them there to get shot." Lassiter questioned, however, whether students should be included in the fight-back training: "That's going to scare the you-know-what out of them." Most of the freshman class at Burleson's high school underwent instruction during orientation, and eventually all Burleson students will receive some training, even the elementary school children. "We want them to know if Miss Valley says to run out of the room screaming, that is exactly what they need to do," said Jeanie Gilbert, district director of emergency management. She said students and teachers should have "a fighting chance in every situation." "It's terribly sad that when I get up in the morning that I have to wonder what may happen today either in our area or in the nation," Gilbert said. "Something that happens in Pennsylvania has that ripple effect across the country." Burleson High Principal Paul Cash said he has received no complaints from parents about the training. Stacy Vaughn, the president of the Parent-Teacher Organization at Norwood Elementary in Burleson, supports the program. "I feel like our kids should be armed with the information that these types of possibilities exist," Vaughn said. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #9 Somebody learned the right lesson from Flight 93. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2006-10-13 22:12 |
| #8 Excuse my French, but Fuckin-A! Hilda Quiroz of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, said she knows of no other school system in the country that is offering fight-back training, and found the strategy at Burleson troubling. "If kids are saved, then this is the most wonderful thing in the world. If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who's to blame," she said. "How much common sense will a student have in a time of panic?" Ms Quiroz, the strategy of sitting on the floor singing kumbaya and trying to reach out to the inner child of the psycho thats killing kids is really old hat now. It. Does. Not. Work. What might work is throwing books and sharp objects at him to disorientate him so other kids can mob him and kick him in the shins and balls, whilst others jab their fingers in his mouth and pull some teeth out, still more rip his ears off and even more make his nose a bloody mess, whilst two other kids get the weapon and two more gouge his friggin' eyes out. Then when they get him on the floor, the two biggest kids do a 'bronco kick' on him. If he's still alive then God help him, because they'll have the gun and he'll be blinded and bleeding from a dozen injuries, including a rather nasty sucking chest wound... Apportioning 'blame' won't even be on the radar Hilda... Sorry, but I've just seen some dumb shit lawyer TV drama thing on the box which was all 'lets just get along' and ignore the poor bastard who's dead kind of thing - Grrrr ps, good for Burleson, Texas - obviously a town that cares about their kids!! |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2006-10-13 20:20 |
| #7 Standard procedure if your unit is caught in an ambush is to directly assault into the ambush. One - youÂ’re already in the kill zone, so standing still will only get you killed. Two - turning and running only gives your ambusher an exposed and non-threatening target to continue his killing. |
| Posted by: Procopius2K 2006-10-13 19:15 |
| #6 #3 a5089 - That happened at a college in far Southwestern Virginia. The (foreign student) nutcase went in and started shooting. Another (adult) student heard the shots, retrieved his legal handgun from his nearby car, went in and shot the gunman, stopping him Of course the TV networks and wire stories ignored that part of the "drama" but the local/state papers had no trouble reporting it. And some of the other (presumably younger, but who knows?) students who weren't in any danger got all pissy because the guy who stopped the shooting and saved people's lives had the gall to have a gun in his car on the campus! How dare he! I say give the nutcase back his gun and point him in the direction of those pussy-assed idiots. While the hero who stopped him is somewhere far from campus. >:-( |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-10-13 18:48 |
| #5 Of course now-a-days its illegal to have a firearm within a certain distance (200 yds?) of a school in some places. I'm sure a school shooter will try not to violate that law on his way to the |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2006-10-13 18:44 |
| #4 Hé hé, speaking of the devil... I've checked the bookmarks I've just given, and John Lott has an entry about school shooting prevented by armed citizen response. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-13 18:13 |
| #3 I don't recall the details, but I remember reading accounts of past schools shooters being stop in action by armed students or armed teachers (fetching the guns from their cars), I think this was either from Massad Ayoob or John Lott. When escaping to safety is not possible, fighting back is the only viable option, complying is suicidal (of course, that's easy to say for the abject coward I am, comfortably seated in front of his computer). |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-13 18:05 |
| #2 Fuck the PC crowd, a5089. The wanna-be school shooters can go shoot at PC assholes when they realize schools aren't free-fire (for them) zones anymore. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-10-13 16:49 |
| #1 This is actually common sense in action, though it certainly won't win that school any point with the PC crowd. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-10-13 16:44 |