Why Should Only School Kids Have To Deal with Active Shooter Drills?

Why is the rest of our community exempt from these useless exercises in trauma and futility?

I received an email from my daughter’s school. The principal wrote to inform us that they had scheduled another active shooter drill. I read it with annoyance. I read it with anger. I read it with the knowledge that there’s not much I can do.

Active shooter drills represent yet another assault on education. Whatever lesson is planned for the day is lost as the children are urged to huddle beneath desks or behind doors. It’s all pointless, anyway. Mass shooters in the United States of America have access to firepower that can cut a portal through a cement wall.

The school resource officer who took the salary that had been designated for the art teacher is carrying a .38 revolver with six shots. He’s not stopping anybody.

Lately, there’s been a movement that suggests parents should have more of a say as to what’s taught in public schools. As for me, I want a say in the type of active shooter drills that are conducted. I don’t want my children taught to huddle in place like fish in a barrel. I want them to run for the exits and keep running until they get home.

I want them to follow the school resource officer as he flees the building. At least he’s had the appropriate training and knows what to do in that situation.

You run.

Active shooter drills are an offensive waste of time.

Whatever lesson was planned for the day was cut short. My child’s sense of well-being is torn to shreds. The children are taught the opposite of useful information.

As I read the email, I noticed that the rest of the community is being left behind. Why should only our children have to suffer the terror, interruption, and trauma of an active shooter drill?

Mass shooters could strike anywhere. Why is it that our only response to this recurring and completely preventable tragedy is to inconvenience school kids?

If my kids must have their day interrupted by a worthless drill where they’re locked in a dark room and forced to huddle on their knees, so should everybody else in the community.

That’s fair.

Every time a school has to do an active shooter drill, so should every other prominent business organization or public gathering.

They should run active shooter drills at the local retirement home.

They should run active shooter drills at the local church.

They should run active shooter drills at city hall.

Make the retired, the religious, and the elected huddle under their desks in terror like my children. Let’s see how they like it.

As a society, we insist that our children should endure this interruption. In solidarity, the rest of our society should join them. They need to schedule active shooter drills at NFL games, NBA games, and Major League Baseball games. Do it during the Super Bowl so that all of America can see.

Pause play. Make the whole stadium evacuate out into the street. Have a two-hour delay, and then let them back in.

It’s just a stupid game. It’s not like you’re interrupting an important lesson that kids learn at school.

We should have regular active shooter drills at hospitals, airports, and bus stations. Make doctors, travelers and business people get on their knees and put their briefcases over their heads. Let them know what it feels like to send a text message to their spouse that says, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I love you.”

That’s fair.

This is the reality of the United States. It’s called “United” for a reason. We should all have to experience the same thing. Everybody should have firsthand knowledge about what an active shooter drill is actually like.

Perhaps, through these drills, a few lives will be saved in the next horrific mass murder.

However, let’s face it: this is nothing more than useless performance theater. It gives the impression that the situation is being addressed when really we’re doing worse than nothing.

However, the fact remains that active shooter drills are a consequence of having AR-15s and other weapons of war available for sale in our country. These drills are a way of life for our children, so they should be a way of life for everybody.

We might not be able to pass gun control. But I bet the legislation already exists to schedule active shooter drills in commercial buildings, and government offices, and any other place where taxpayer funding is involved.

Banks should be required to do at least one active shooter drill a week. Make them do it again and again and again, and then do it fifty more times just to be safe.

Get on your knees the same way you make our kids get on their knees. I don’t care if you don’t like it. You make our kids do it, so you’ll do the same.

I want to see it. I want to see politicians suffering the indignity of going through the same active shooter drills they force upon our children.

That’s fair.

Would it save any lives?

No.

But it might change some opinions.

The point would be to subject every adult of voting age to the inconvenience and the trauma that our kids have to endure.

What’s that? You don’t like huddling in terror? You don’t like interrupting your work day? You don’t like scuffing up your nice business attire? Well, too bad! Our kids have to do it, so you have to do it. There’s no other option.

You see, it’s a whole lot easier to ignore human suffering if you’re insulated from it.

The way I see it, anyone who is eligible to vote should have to go through the trauma and the inconvenience of an active shooter drill… for their own protection.

Perhaps with the benefit of such an experience, they’ll start making better choices at the ballot box.

All of these discounts are forever.

My CoSchedule referral link

Here’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).