Academia, Politics, Society

Rational or Hysterical? Minnesota Schools District Buys Bulletproof Whiteboards

article-2313299-196FFE9A000005DC-484_634x352While schools in Arizona are adding armed posses and schools in Connecticut are arming janitors, a Minnesota school has turned to bulletproof whiteboards as its last ditch defense against attackers. Two students died in a shooting in the Rocori School District in 2003 so the school has purchased 18-by-20-inch whiteboards that can be used by teachers for instruction or bullet protection.


Maryland-based Hardwire LLC is tapping into the near hysteria over school shootings, even though such shootings remains incredibly rare.

The boards are $109 a pop as opposed to normal white boards that cost as little as $23.

article-2313299-196FFE9E000005DC-550_634x356I must confess some skepticism on the practicality of a shield for a teacher. First, it appears to protect only one person and only from a frontal attack. The teacher would have to lose use of one hand and arm in managing children. The teacher would also have to find the board in the chaos of a shooting. The teacher would then be protected while the kids behind him or her would be exposed. The magic board strikes me as more of a psychological than practice protection for these reasons.

What do you think?

Source: USA Today

88 thoughts on “Rational or Hysterical? Minnesota Schools District Buys Bulletproof Whiteboards”

  1. AY,

    Stupid… AND crazy. (Pardon the caps. 😉 )

  4. Swarthmore mom,

    You beat me to it.
    Now, I won’t need to futilely argue religion with the many terrified, gun-worshiping males that populate this blog. Thanks for that.

    Coroner Gary White was quoted that the 5-year-old using his own rifle to kill his sister was “crazy.” Good word for it.

    I listened to a coroner phone someone, and ask the person what it would take to get that person to report child abuse, before the case ended up at the coroner. “Do I need to file charges against you? You tell me.”

    Coroner Gary White’s attitude is “Gee willikers, I guess [stuff] just happens, huh?”

    You can get a “Crickett” rifle for your toddler, here:
    http://www.crickett.com/

    More guns!

    Just another of my emotional, dishonest, bull-excrement, illogical, foaming-at-the-mouth, knee-jerk arguments. Not to worry, boys, I don’t want your manhood, a.k.a., your guns. Don’t need ’em. You do, obviously.

    Feel free to pick my argument apart, using “logical” terms from some long-dead language. I’ll still be right, and you’ll still be wrong.

  6. AP or ap,

    Isn’t that exactly how the congress is supposed to react? What if a majority of folks wanted to abolish the constitution and implement a National Religion…. Do, you think that’s a good ideal? Sometimes, congress works the way it’s intended…. And the minority beliefs are implemented..

  7. Wednesday, May 1, 2013 11:45 AM EDT

    Rise of the conservative revolutionaries

    Almost half of Republicans think an armed revolution may be needed soon. What does it mean for guns and democracy?

    By David Sirota

    http://www.salon.com/2013/05/01/rise_of_the_conservative_revolutionaries/

    Excerpts:

    There’s plenty of proof of an authoritarian streak and animus toward democratic ideals in today’s conservative movement. There was the movement’s use of its judicial power to halt a vote recount and instead install a president who had lost the popular vote. There is the ongoing GOP effort to make it more difficult for people to cast a vote in an election. There is the GOP’s record use of the Senate filibuster to kill legislation that the vast majority of the country supports. There is a GOP leader’s declaration that what the American people want from their government simply “doesn’t matter.”

    Up until today, you might have been able to write all that anti-democratic pathology off as a pathology infecting only the Republican Party’s politicians and institutional leadership, but not its rank-and-file voters. But then this poll from Fairleigh-Dickinson University was released showing that authoritarianism runs throughout the the entire party.

    …..

    Of course, GOP apologists will say that the poll just asked specifically about armed revolution “to protect liberties” – the idea being that almost half of Republican voters don’t support using violence to advance their own political agenda, they only support it in the face of a future dystopian nightmare whereby the population is terrorized by police-administered drone bombings and Waco-esque invasions of private homes.

    But that’s the thing: we can’t be so sure that’s really true when conservative media voices and politicians are using the broad and incendiary language they now regularly employ. Today, those voices often claim that almost everything in the Democratic/liberal agenda – from Obamacare to taxes to environmental regulations to contraception policy – is an assault on “liberty.”

    That means the poll might indicate something much more significant than understandable opposition to Big Brother turning our country into Oceania. It might show us that all the vitriolic language employed by the right is undermining the most basic non-violent democratic ideals that are supposed to define America.
    David Sirota

    David Sirota is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, magazine journalist and the best-selling author of the books “Hostile Takeover,” “The Uprising” and “Back to Our Future.” E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website

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