Sandy Hook, part three, possible outcomes

Prior to the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut,  the Sandy Hook Elementary School installed some new security measures:  an electric lock, intercom and video camera at the front door.  After students arrive the door locks at 9:30 AM and thereafter, a person seeking admittance will have to talk to the officemarm and be buzzed in. 

Such equipment might keep out the mild-mannered Fred Rogers but what if the person huffing and puffing at the door is more like the Big Bad Wolf?  What then little pig?  Is your house made of bricks, or straw?

Sandy Hook, part two, 20 seconds

I figure the adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School had twenty seconds to respond to the armed intruder on December 14th, if they were going to save any of the children in their care.  That's all the time it would have taken Mr. Adam Lanza to step through the shattered front door and walk to the nearest classroom and start firing and killing first-graders. 

It took him a little longer than that because Principal Hochsprung and Mary Sherlach got in his way...but not for long.  He just shot them dead and continued on.  

Sandy Hook, part one

WHO IS TO BLAME?

Some Thoughts on the Sandy Hook School Deaths

Part One

If someone kicked in your front door and went room to room shooting people what would you do about it?  More importantly, what could you do about it?

Most people would run away or hide; every man for himself.  That’s about all they could do.

But what if you feel some responsibility for the other people in the house, or business?  What would you do then?

Defensive Desks at Virginia Tech and Elsewhere

This is a letter I wrote to a local newspaper editorial page back when the Virginia Tech shootings happened.  I still think it is relevent to the latest massacre.  HN.

Defensive Desks

23 April 2007

Dear Editor:

            School administrators should rethink this ”hide-under-your-desk-and-call-the-police” method of self defense.  I mean, desks are heavy and awkward to carry around.  What if you are between classes and someone tries to hurt you? 

            What if you are not a student, like that woman who got bludgeoned to death on a Portland street the other night?  She was hollering for help and someone called the police for her and the police came, but it was too late.  I’ll bet at the time she wished she’d had a desk with her…or an eighty-year-old professor willing to sacrifice himself to slow her attacker down, or some other self-defense aid. 

            Someone really ought to invent some kind of defensive tool that’s easily carried, and weighs under two pounds that could stop an evil person from killing you.  If such an invention existed, I would definitely get one and give one to my wife and all my adult children.