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jstan
climber
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 22, 2013 - 02:51pm PT
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Yesterday's school shooting in Nevada apparently has stimulated media interest in this answer.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/17/us/maryland-armored-whiteboards/index.html?iid=article_sidebar
Maryland university buying bulletproof whiteboards
By CNN Staff
updated 9:16 AM EDT, Sat August 17, 2013
University of Maryland-Eastern Shore is buying 200 bulletproof whiteboards
The whiteboards use technology developed to protect police, military
The 18-by-20-inch boards weigh less than 4 pounds
(CNN) -- Using technology designed to protect U.S. troops, a Maryland company that makes bulletproof whiteboards has contracted with a university seeking to offer its professors greater protection in the event of a school shooting.
The University of Maryland-Eastern Shore announced that it is purchasing 200 of the whiteboards from Hardwire LLC, a company based in Pocomoke City,
Maryland, citing the need for a heightened sense of security in the wake of deadly mass shootings in recent years.
Hardwire manufactures a variety of protective systems for police and military use, and also designs protective systems for infrastructure such as bridges. Between 2008 and 2011, it produced more than 5,000 armor kits for U.S. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, the company says on its website.
More recently, the company has adapted technologies for school security, most notably the lightweight, 18-by-20-inch bulletproof whiteboards designed to protect the user's head and torso.
The university's president, Juliette Bell, told CNN that the deadly school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last December, in which a lone gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, was a factor in the decision. Although UMES has not had a shooting incident, preventive campus security is a critical consideration, Bell said. "It's the reality, as unfortunate as that is."
UMES has detailed response procedures for managing emergencies, but Bell said she and other school officials saw the whiteboards as a viable first line of defense.
"Anything that we can do that could potentially save a life, we are going to explore," she said.
UMES Campus Police Chief Ernest Leatherbury noted the board, which weighs less than 4 pounds, is user-friendly. "This is so accessible," he said, "and it's not cumbersome."
UMES is the first U.S. institution of higher education to make such a significant investment in the whiteboards, committing nearly $60,000. They will be in classrooms when classes resume for the fall semester on August 26.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Oct 22, 2013 - 02:52pm PT
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wouldn't be the first time a professor hid behind a whiteboard.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:01pm PT
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wouldn't be the first time a professor hid behind a whiteboard.
I resemble that remark!
John
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:07pm PT
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So let me get this straight - school shootings are such a problem that we are giving students shields they can hold up in the even someone kicks the door down with an automatic rifle?
Good grief.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:19pm PT
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You got that right, GD.
No doubt the NRA gun-nutz will see this as a perfectly logical, reasonable option, along with gun-toting teachers, students, hall monitors, and bullet proof book bags, lunch boxes, etc.
Don't tread on me, goddamit!
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:24pm PT
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Hey, Greg..did you get my reply to your ST email a few weeks ago? Never sure if yahoo is actually working these days...
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PAUL SOUZA
Trad climber
Central Valley, CA
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:28pm PT
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There is no "gun problem." Only a people problem. Gun control only offers an illusion of safety.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:33pm PT
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Who wants to place bets that the shooter was on psychiatric meds?
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:40pm PT
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More unrestricted guns will definitely reduce the people problem, unfortunately.
When some disturbed person wants to blow kids to bits, guns sure make it easy for them. There is no doubt about that. I guess the only answer is the threat of more violence. Our society is devolving ;-(
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:41pm PT
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There has to be a balance between sword and shield.
Unfortunately we cannot outlaw stupidity. Some people feel the need to look for surrogates.
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jstan
climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 22, 2013 - 03:42pm PT
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WHAT has changed?
Gun owners reproduced.
Killer.
We have had a break through! A major break through with this shooting.
WHAT has changed? /RA
Do you realize how seldom that question is ever asked?
Edit:
WHAT has changed?
The people who buy and shoot guns as well as the quantity and availability of firepower.
Certainly, but other things have also changed. On another thread I mouthed off to the effect that today children are increasingly being raised by other children. This Nevada boy had been bullied. I ask myself what I would have done had my parents been out of the picture and I was being bullied. My first option would have been to get into weight training and learning how to defend myself. We also need to ask how much bullying is backed by a gang. That too is potentially new.
When opposed by a gang and absent an adult supporter, might one get pissed off enough to reach for a piece?
I think we have a number of causes, converging.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Sport climber
moving thru
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:49pm PT
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A part of what has changed, imho, are the number of children from infancy up that are exposed to some pretty severe violence in most of our media, phones, games etc.
Recently heard a 6 year old tell his brother he wanted to kill him. Watching the games he plays I don't think he respects human life and thinks that games and life are similar.
Get these kids outside; put them on a rope safely and let them learn respect and a little fear. Of course, again, imho. Lynne
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StahlBro
Trad climber
San Diego, CA
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Oct 22, 2013 - 03:59pm PT
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We have become a society where gratuitous violence is becoming a bigger part of our entertainment, and more accepted. Video games, MMC, Football hits getting out of hand etc. that is one thing that is changing. More people are getting desensitized to it, and if you are on the edge it could seem like a solution to your problems.
Many psychotropic drugs have gnarly side affects as well. Once you start them it can be a life sentence.
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Hoser
climber
vancouver
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Oct 22, 2013 - 04:11pm PT
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WHAT has changed?
A lot of things have changed, problem is there is a lot people who think nothing has changed, like yourself. You hammer down on everything and call it BS, climate change, health care, gun laws...and what happens is people get left behind. They dont get the help they need and then sh#t goes south.
There is a sh#t load more people straining the old system, now folks need to work together, but for some reason there is this every man for himself mentality.
I find it so freaking weird that religious people, supoosedly the best folks on earth, have no problems saying...if he doesnt work he can dye a slow painful death because I refuse to support whatever social progams because its communist or whatever....
Well guess what, the folks who have nothing left to live for or cant get help go bat sh#t crazy and do weird sh#t. Then you end up paying for it in the end anyways, and a lot more.
Here is a news flash for you, sh#t has changed, and its never going back to the way it was...so you can either change, or you can die off and the young folks will change it for you.
Its not the video games, its the absentee parents working 7 days a week to afford sh#t that was, when you were growing up, basic, like a ride to work or a parent free to hunt after school...there are too many folks like you who think hey man I walked up hill both ways and so should you.
Bullet prrof chalk boards...thats the solution? It certainly is the cheapest, but hell one of your other nut bar friends will make chalk board bullets cause thats their right
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de La Playa
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Oct 22, 2013 - 04:22pm PT
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The gun manufacturers also make the shields. It's a perfectly integrated and controlled vertical market as far as it goes.
The next step will be to buy up big pharma so that they control the means of controlling those who flunk the background checks.
Do they control the background check process yet?
At some point will the gun-runners control every aspect of life in the United States?
And what about planned obsolescence?
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Curt
climber
Gold Canyon, AZ
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Oct 22, 2013 - 04:35pm PT
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As these school shootings become more frequent (and they are) the argument that we need more people with more guns to prevent the shootings somehow seems absurd. The only thing we can know with certainty is that there would be no school shootings if there were no guns. Everything else is merely speculation and conjecture.
Curt
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MarkGrubb
climber
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Oct 22, 2013 - 05:05pm PT
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What has changed, indeed.
I grew up in southern West Virginia in the 1960's and 70's which was probably a "poster child" for a pervasive gun culture. Like Ron, many trucks in the high school parking lot had rifles and shotguns in them. Kids went hunting with other kids and even teachers after school.
Gun availibility of all types has decreased markedly in the USA through time. In addition the prices, in "level" dollars for guns and ammo has increased. Up until the late 1960's guns, up to and including fully automatic weapons and the "assault weapons" of the day - M1A's, M1 Carbies, and Garands were readily available from any hardware store in town and via mail order for very inexpensive prices.
During this time period, the two high schools in town (white and black) were forcibly integrated. There were fist fights, riots and horribly one-sided beat-downs (on both sides of the racial divide) almost daily in the school. No combatants EVER went to get a readily accessible gun from their vehicle.
What has changed? Boys now commit and watch pervasive, gratutitous violence daily on their computers. They literally kill people by the thousand evey week. In contrast to hunting, there is no real appreciation of what causing the death of fellow animal is really like. They have habitauted themselves to have absolutely no emotional or physical investment nor ownership of an ultimate act.
Combine that with the fact that have essentially zero parent involvement in their lives. They are being raised by the internet, TV, and social media.
I woulds suggest that we are currently raing a generation of souless quasi-serial killers.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Oct 22, 2013 - 05:19pm PT
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Who knows why these shootings happen, but it's worth keeping in mind that overall rates of violent crime (including gun crime) is significantly down over a 20 year stretch.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/us/study-gun-homicide
My intuition would be the same as a lot of posters--these school shootings are somehow related to bad/absent parents, video games, modern culture, etc.
But that intuition seems wrong in the face of overall declining gun crime. Maybe it's just some weird copycat phenomenon--couple of whack jobs did it (Columbine) and got lots of press, now every marginalized/bullied kid who's also a bit off at least thinks about it.
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Trusty Rusty
climber
Tahoe Area
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Oct 22, 2013 - 06:23pm PT
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What has Changed? Everything.
Entertainment & media, family/social values, economics of violence, status of classes & races, firearm trade, lines at the base of El Cap. . everything has changed since then.
It's an endless dispute, energy sewer. The effluence of opinion and debate continues, imbeciles, scholars, puppet politicians, clergy and stoners. What's supposed to be protection of the innocent is a political sausage fest, fukng power game. Streets are more violent, senseless killings increase, economic injustice and global economics flourish. Answer to the Gun Problem? Our government's negligently working on it overtime, it's called total economic collapse and emergent chaos. . . that should resolve the so-called gun problem.
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