
What Are Active-Shooter Drills Doing to Kids? - dsr12
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/effects-of-active-shooter/554150/?single_page=true
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aethertap
Slightly off-topic, but I have a friend who does training for active shooter
response (he goes around to schools and large businesses and teaches people
what seems to work best for saving lives in these situations). When I see
things like "they huddle under their desks in the dark" I cringe. His training
is very different, and focused on evacuating the students and disrupting the
shooter. First, barricade the doors, then seek immediate escape and RUN. If
that's not possible, everyone picks up whatever they can throw and gets ready
to pelt the shooter with it if the door is breached. While this is happening,
people escape around the edges and others attempt to subdue the shooter
(taking advantage of the fact that it's very hard to shoot accurately when
you're being pelted with hard, heavy objects).

He has researched a number of these events, and he has some chilling stories.
In one case, the shooter walked up and down the rows of desks where people
were cowering in the dark and executed each person. I think he said there were
only a couple of survivors, and even those were critically injured. In the
same shooter incident (sorry I can't recall where he said this one happened),
another classroom used the disrupt and escape method, and almost all of them
survived.

Bringing it back to topic, I wonder how the psychological effect would change
if the students and teachers were trained with active responses that have been
shown to greatly improve their odds of survival, instead of being told to wait
passively in the dark and hope they get skipped. Would the fear be reduced? I
honestly don't know how it would be for kids, but in my own case I feel better
when I'm prepared to act instead of having to wait around for something to
happen to me.

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JBlue42
>I honestly don't know how it would be for kids, but in my own case I feel
better when I'm prepared to act instead of having to wait around for something
to happen to me.

You mean similar to how any sort of hostage / terrorist event on planes tend
to get stopped by passengers now after 9/11 because folks would rather go down
fighting?

Also, thanks for sharing the anecdote.

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wambotron
The drills don't make sense to me. If it's a drill to protect the students
against one of their own, that student has also been in the drills and knows
that quiet rooms still likely have people in them.

If I remember correctly, the last school shooting had the kid shooting through
a door's window into a classroom and killing people who were hiding in the
corner. Obviously he knew they were in there already. The drilling he was in
would've showed him that.

So what is the point of it? You are giving away any and all secrets to the
potential assailant. It's nothing like a fire drill or a "mother nature" type
of drill. They should really just stop doing it.

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rhcom2
I don't think it is about actually hiding or being secret. It's just about
stalling. Getting through a locked door takes time that responding officers
can use to get to the school. Most school shootings stop as soon as the first
responding officer engages with the shooter.

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AstralStorm
Locked door will not stall a person with a gun willing to shoot through said
door. And as they know about the drill they will not be fooled into thinking
nobody is there. Plus they can just shoot the lock off. And building a real
barricade takes a long time, strength plus skill.

It will prevent any solid response from you though, other than jumping out the
window (if possible).

This is why people are trained to evacuate not stay putt during danger. Or
stall it actively if they can. Same principle as in fires, earthquakes,
floods, bombings or other terror.

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InitialLastName
If you raise children in fear, they're easy to manipulate into fear as adults.

I wonder if there's any connection between the Booomers' upbringing in the
duck-and-cover era and their later full-throated support of security theater
in the name of "anti-terrorism".

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jamesrcole
> _If you raise children in fear, they 're easy to manipulate into fear as
> adults._

An implicit claim in the quoted text is that one of the reasons people want to
implement such drills is to produce adults that will be easier to manipulate.
I think a claim like that requires some attempt at justification.

(And before anyone jumps to conclusions, the point I'm making is completely
independent of whether I think the drills are a good or bad thing).

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AstralStorm
The justification is hard - you would have to run serious longitudinal
studies. By that point the damage (or not) is done. In fact this could be
considered an unsanctioned social experiment, doubly unethical because it is
ran on children and bypasses parental oversight.

Just consider what happens in quite heavily militarized countries such as
South Korea. They get large numbers of people who are obedient and respect
authority - this on top of the general Asian proclivity to do so.

Or perhaps see what happens in Israel and Palestine with all the missile
drills.

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oldcynic
Wow. Talk about solving the wrong problem.

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maxehmookau
America is strange.

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abrown28
I remember drills that had us huddling under our desks because Russia was
going to nuke us. Those desks are magical.

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matte_black
I think this is good. Kids go into these drills with eyes wide open, and are
forced to confront the reality of their own mortality, and how easily their
life could just come to a gruesome end even in a safe setting. The sooner one
realizes this in life, the sooner one starts to live with _intent_ , and
discerns the difference between things that truly matter in life and that
which is fleeting and vain.

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AstralStorm
Some will instead break faced with this reality or... even worse. Since this
is not personalized, it is extremely irresponsible to run such drills.

If they really want to do this, they could choose a hand picked group to
actually train in civil response instead of this dumb. Enough trained people
should be able to stop an active shooter as opposed to scared bunch of kids.

