Fun With Guns: They Didn’t Use Spitwads Edition
In Indiana, an active shooter drill became just a tad too real when the local law enforcement leading the drill shot teachers with plastic pellets.
It hurt like hell and drew blood. Some of them were shot as many as four times.
Four teachers [at a time] were led into a room, told to kneel and then were shot with a pellet gun “execution style” and injured during an active shooter training at an Indiana elementary school in January, according to the Indiana State Teachers Association.
The teachers outside, waiting their turn, heard the teachers inside screaming but the teachers inside were instructed not to tell those waiting outside what happened.
Okay, stop right there. I know the bad guys in this story are the “local law enforcement” who thought this is a good idea. And that everybody got to see first-hand how some cops overstep their authority and have a sadistic streak through their brains. I understand that. I get it. But, there’s no period at the end of that sentence.
What the hell were the teachers thinking? Was there not one single adult among them who stood up and put a stop to this foolishness? Yeah, it’s all fun and games until somebody puts out an eye. What the hell kind of person would let their co-workers walk into a situation that was dangerous and very painful. What the hell, teachers?
This is what’s wrong with America. Some people are real mean and crazy and other people let them do it because they are too scared to say anything. The second group should gut up. The first group should go to hell.
And yes, I am looking at you United State Congress and Donald Trump.
Happy Friday folks, and thanks to everybody who sent me this story.
If those police were in favor of arming teachers in the classroom, they might want to rethink their position.
1Well said, J.J. The police officer who okayed this travesty should be fired, along with any officers who went along with it.
2The first group of teachers who were shot had an obligation to protest and inform the rest of the sadistic treatment they would be exposed to.
In any event the school administrators should have been informed of what was going to happen and called a halt before anybody was hurt. It seems there was a serious lack of communication here. This is one of the reasons we need strong teachers’ unions. Had one existed and been informed, this whole mess would have come to a screeching halt.
Indiana is known to frown on teachers’ unions.
If somebody got bent after getting this treatment, could it be considered a crime to knock somebody’s teeth in for it? Asking for a friend.
3JJ –
4The teachers were already getting shot with plastic bullets. If they didn’t obey the cops they probably figured real bullets were next. Teachers watch the news.
This says something to me about our silent VP.
5My first thought was also the teacher’s supervision. My lovely lady is a newly retired teacher. If this had happened to her, the principal would’ve been the first person I talked to. If he knew what would happen, and allowed it to happen to people he was directly responsible for?
6Then our talk woulda taken on a very different tone.
So to speak.
I’m on faculty in a medical school/health center. If this ever happened to me, my first call would be to son-in-law who is a lawyer, while I told him and everyone waiting what was going on. Second would be to leadership To let them know they are being sued and that if they didn’t order this stopped immediately, the lawsuit would be worse. And third would be local press, who are already irked with police for arresting them as they were covering a peaceful demonstration. This is why we have unions and why we have tenure.
7And yes, as a postscript, we do have required active shooter training annually. We have had violent incidents at the hospital before. No one has found it necessary to shoot pellets at faculty or staff as part of training.
8Just watched this reasoned response from Beau.
https://youtu.be/eeAvhhppe6I
9Here are some paragraphs from the Indianapolis Star story:
Now, these teachers and the state’s largest teachers union want to stop this from happening in other Hoosier schools. The Indiana State Teachers Association is lobbying lawmakers to add language prohibiting teachers from being shot with any sort of ammunition to a school safety bill working its way through the Statehouse.
“What we’re looking for is just a simple statement in this bill that would prohibit the shooting of some type of projectile at staff in an active-shooter drill,” said Gail Zeheralis, director of government relations for the ISTA during testimony in support of House Bill 1004 before lawmakers Wednesday.
10“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
11― Primo Levi
What on earth was the point of this ‘training’? Training them for what? How to behave when being shot execution style? This just seems like sadism. Bet the cops got huge thrill out of this. A lot of them re sickos.
12I guess the police would have enjoyed Stanley Milgram’s obedience tests – thankfully he wouldn’t have used them!
13Dang! That reminded me of that experiment in authority – as in draconian – that was done several decades ago with college students. As for why the teachers didn’t fight back, hell, they have been told any number of times that no matter what they can’t fight back an attacker on school property. If they do, they will be fired. As for me, I can be as mean as second skimmings. There is no way I would have put up with that junk! And it is junk! As in junk psychology.
14As a 20+ yr EMS and search and rescue vol, I’ve participated in a LOT of realistic field training. First rule for the organizer is that no one gets hurt. And no one has been. So heads should roll from the nitwit that planned the teachers exercise to the moron that approved it. Also…..how proud must NZ be to have a leader with the balls to insist on real action to prevent another mass shooting (not just thoughtsy prayery words and ridiculous ‘training’). This is what happens when women get to lead.
15Ditto, all of the above. And damn the teacher’s union for not immediately pulling a wildcat strike over this.
16There always has to be somebody who will stand up and say “WTF?!” I’m proud to say that sometimes it’s been me.
17Joe Hill:
18This smells like something the NRA has come up with to scare teachers for the purpose of convincing them that they’re helpless without having guns themselves.
You know, it’s for their own good dontcha know.
Ferdamnsure they figure it’ll sell more guns and ammunition.
P. P. – It does make one wonder.
I’d like to think I would have screamed bloody murder if anybody at my workplace had done this to me . I sure hope I would have . Heads should roll in management.
19This merely demonstrates that there are evil people waiting in the wings to be the Gestapo when a despot leader would order the Gestapo to imprison, torture and kill to keep the dictator in power.
20Would not the sound of gunfire been as effective in creating the horror or did they think pain was necessary? Heads should roll.
21I recently read that Milgrim’s experiment is no longer held in esteem in the academy. Maybe the academics are wrong.
There’s a lng history of this sort of wanna-be nazi activity among the ‘Murricans in the upper Midwest. In 1948 (or thereabouts) the American Legion took over a small town in Wisconsin to show how awful the commies were.
There’s a reason we call them gun nuts.
22If they wanted realism, the teachers should have grabbed something and beat the hell out of the shooters.
23