Not only that but they will be desensitized to the sound of gun fire so they won't know they should be scared... oh it's just another drill.

Psst...boys and girls...its a way to let them know what the popping is in case another evil gun owner opens fire. It has nothing to do with the NRA. It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with kids not freezing and becoming instant targets because they have never heard REAL gunfire before and it is way, way louder than the movies or so muffled it sounds like a desk being thrown.

Its a way to help our kids that DOESN'T have to pass congress. Lighten up.

firing blanks indoors w/o ear protection is dumb.everyone knows what gunfire sounds like,a little over dramatizing aren't we?

This is wrong on so many levels, things that are thrown in their faces at such a young age.

Quick harping on these issues and stick to teaching kids reading, writing and arithmetic.

OC I'm not sure how you know. Have you shot guns? Been around them?

We have had active shooter drills in our school before, and by far the most common response from everyone involved was that they had no idea what a gun firing in the building would sound like. These are the people in charge of the safety of your kids. Letting them and your kids know what danger sounds like is a FAR better idea than armed guards.

If you have never touched a gun, and you are just a keyboard commando, I'll throw you a freebie; very loud and percussive at short range or surprisingly baffled. since most schools tend to be baffled well (if they weren't manufactured in the "age of modulerity" late 70's to early '80s). The movies are by far the absolute worst comparison for gunshots ever.

And federal workplace regulations prevent them from shooting guns close enough to cause hearing damage.

We have had active shooter drills in our school before, and by far the most common response from everyone involved was that they had no idea what a gun firing in the building would sound like. These are the people in charge of the safety of your kids. Letting them and your kids know what danger sounds like is a FAR better idea than armed guards.

It's loud as @!$%#. Any concern over hearing damage?

no because they won't shoot it in the same room, so the loudest it gets is through a door type situation where it's been baffled down to a loud thunderclap. Like I said, the big thing is they expect the gunshots to be like in the movies.

Not even remotely the case. You can't even describe the sound, other than "imagine the noise of a jet engine only it starts and stops in a fraction of a second." And even then, most of them have never heard a jet engine from anywhere but in the plane. I can't say as I'm a huge proponent of subjecting kids to it...we only have our teachers attend, but the teachers are almost universally ignorant of what a gun going off in the school would really sound like.

In most cases, they are startled by the close range shots, and maybe a little shaken up, but kinda know what to expect. What REALLY gets them is that someone could be shooting 2 classrooms down and around the corner, and unless their room was silent, they might not hear it/know it's gunfire.

File this using of gunfire sounds in the drill in the "stupid ideas" file. Has anybody thought of how traumatic this could be to the little children? Especially after the events in Newtown.

Other suggestions for sound effects during school drills:

1. Music from "Psycho" Janet Leigh shower scene while teacher randomly shoots water gun at students.

2. Out-of-control monster truck engine noise (hey, it could happen!).

3. Theme music from "Jaws" and picture of shark fin drawn on blackboard.

4. Godzilla roaring ... say no more.

5. Roseanne Barr singing The National Anthem... nah, too frightening. Also too hard to differentiate from No. 4 above.

What do you expect from a group of College Educated people..... This is right up there with the stupidest thinks suggested.....

The blanks are no louder or damaging than the volume of their music in cars and with headphones on. Educate yourselves. A quick loud pop or two will not cause permanent hearing loss of any kind unless it is done right by the ear. Psychotic nutjobs are a reality in our un-parented society these days. When the people start parenting, this will settle. Get your kids outside and enjoy life. Get away from computer screens, video games, and TV. And don't forget to whip that A@#, when they need correction. It worked for hundreds of years until the hippies had kids. Flower power has made this country soft.

Yes Ortho I know what a report sounds like, both outdoors and in.can't imagine anyone mistaking the experience. Do you guys actually set the school on fire for fire drills too?

This is just sick! You're FIRED! Does the sorry of "The Boy who Called Wolf" mean anything to these educators? If I was a student at that school I'd call it quits. You'd have to put the person in charge in lock down permanently for pulling a stunt like this. If a child had died from fright how would you feel, butt wipe?

I think that so long as the kids know ahead of time that it is a drill, using the blanks is a good idea. After all, most kids have no idea what a gunshot really sounds like. This way they will know what the sound is if they ever hear it for real and will react accordingly. So long as the kids are aware it is part of a drill, hearing the shots should not be a traumatic experience for anyone. After all, they hear gunfire on TV, in movies, and as sound effects in computer games all the time without it being traumatic for them. I would not endorse firing the blanks as a way to initiate a drill with no prior warning that it is coming as this might cause trauma for some students as well as panic. However, to let the kids know there is going to be a drill and use the firing of blanks to start the drill would make sense. You want there to be a conditioned response to the sound of gunfire the same way there is a conditioned response to the sound of a fire alarm and using blanks in the drills is one way to achieve that.

OCinLA

Yes Ortho I know what a report sounds like, both outdoors and in.can't imagine anyone mistaking the experience. Do you guys actually set the school on fire for fire drills too?

#1.13 - Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:12 PM EST

My Alma Mater didn't set the school on fire for fire drills but they did have the fire department pull the fire alarm for every fire drill so we would know what it sounded like.

I'd heard gun shots before (but only when close enough to see the gun being fired), so I'm going to be honest and say that when we heard them outside of my apartment (as in they were outside and we were inside with windows shut and doing our own thing) about 150 feet away, we weren't sure what we heard was gun shots (we did think it might be but it certainly wasn't like "OMG someone's firing a gun!"). When the police arrived we knew it had been gun shots. I will say that not growing up with gun owning/using parents, I don't think I'd heard a real gun shot until a college prof took a group of us to a gun range to let us try shooting a gun (at our request). So I can imagine at least some high schoolers not knowing what a real gun shot (let alone a muffled one) sounds like.

My problem with these drills is that I don't think they're the right answer if you're close to where the shooting is happening (aka classroom next door). Remember there was a story about some of the Sandy Hook kids running out of the classroom when the shooter came in and started shooting and they're the ones that survived. Also the heartbreaking story of the teacher trying to shield the kids in the closet shows that if the gun man gets into the room and you're all crowded into a corner/closet, it's not going to end well. I'm not trying to blame her because she did the proper protocol and had no way of knowing he had that much ammo, but one has to wonder if she had told the kids to run instead of leading them into a closet, if more of them may have survived.

.02 at least you're discussing. Most people on here just want to state their opinion and make everyone agree. All I have to say to that is that in our school, long hallways (killing alleys, in the army) and just a generally huge building mean that your best defense is if a teacher hears the shots and locks your door for you. I am in fact not a teacher, and that's a duty I have...lock the doors. I am an adult, and therefor considered expendable, when compared to the kids I may save by locking their room. The rooms cannot be locked from the inside for OTHER reasons...primarily kids or adults or any mix therein should never be able to lock the door to keep people out and it should never be possible to lock them in against their will.

I acknowledge your point, and in a different tactical situation than the one I'm in, that may be the best option. For my school, which has hallways 100 yards long or more and choke points, the safest bet is to lock the classrooms and move the kids to the wall not visible from the door.

At least then if he tries to shoot his way in or break down the door, high school kids have a chance of being big enough to take him down at that choke point...you are very vulnerable at a doorway.

In some of our smaller schools without a big central hall and with the kids who have no chance of fighting someone off, I'd think that the kids scattering (and not all stuffing into one convenient place) would be better.

No, they would want to arm all the staff and students to shoot blanks back for practice.

You don't even need to answer but what is wrong with you two? So if you own a gun you want murder and mayhem run rampantly every day, every where. Wow.

I agree in principle but you can say that about any drill.

When I was in school we had so many fire drills that it significantly desensitized us to the alarm. If the fire alarm went off we just assumed that there was no danger and that it was just another drill.

while I can see that doing one of these kinds of drills, preannounced, once a year or so might do some good, but on the whole it is probably more "feel good" action that something that will ever really be necessary. The school district and local police just want to make it look like they are doing something. Most schools already have measures in place for situations like this, commonly referred to as "lock-down situations" and they can be for many situations. When I was in school we had two lock-downs that I can remember. One was a suspicious person on campus and the other was a chemical leak at a nearby chemical plant. Both turned out to be nothing serious. The procedure was the same, The teacher locks the door, covers the windows and for some reason puts a strip of masking tape on the door and no one is allowed in or out without approval from the office PA system and they have to know the "secret code".

Other than the firing off of blanks, this procedure is nothing new for, well at least for the Middle and High schools I went to.

People are going bonkers on both sides of the issues over the Newton thing right now and I can certainly understand why... but it's not like elementary schools are being shot up every day, or even every year. This, like most of the legislation being put forward right now, is a solution in search of a problem.

"Never waste a tragedy" as the saying goes.

Red that was one of the most reasonable replies I've ever read. I'm sure you feel as disenfranchised at election time as I do...these days, politics is not for the reasonable.

The average armed security guard's paycheck is anywhere from $25-35,000. The cost for hiring an armed police officer is around $50,000. The expense--when schools can't even afford to give all their students a healthy lunch, and keep cutting programs like sports and music due to budget constraints--is something to give taxpayers pause.

And hiring a professional who knows how to handle a weapon does not ensure they are "safe" with their weapon. It does not take away the possibility that since being approved for their jobs/positions, these people have not experienced a mental health or emotional trauma and are a threat to themselves and/or others. There are ways to hide heavy alcohol and drug use from urine tests. People have a lot of stress in their lives, and security guards and policeman suffer from anger management issues as much as anyone else, and there is no way to predict how they might release that stress.

Not to mention that policies have to be discussed and implemented. The armed guard that left his gun in the restroom in Michigan got a "no harm, no foul" pass and no punishment... should that ALWAYS be the case? What if an armed guard shows up at a school when they're not supposed to be working that day... are they authorized to be at the school with a loaded weapon when they're not expected to be there, and how do we know that they are there for innocent reasons and not to harm anyone?

There are lots of things to consider-with cool, calm heads--before jumping into a gun-zone policy.

And please note that I'm not posting FOR or AGAINST it, here, so don't jump down my throat for being a "gun-lover" or a "liberal." I want DISCUSSION. I want the community involved, I want taxpayers to be informed of the changes within their communities, and I want to ensure that we're making safe decisions rather than compounding a problem.

And the cost of saving just one life...... priceless.........

We have enough ex-soldiers that could do the job without any training coming home right now. and I'm sure they'd appreciate the paycheck.

Actually Steve, the cost of saving just one life is NOT priceless in our society. I do not know the post Newtown numbers, but traditionally, the number of children's deaths involving swimming pools is FAR greater than the amount from guns. If every life was truly priceless we would start with the highest amount of deaths and work our way down.The cost of guards is FAR greater than the $25,000-$35,000 listed (if the person works more than 30 hours/week they will get benefits as well and then there is the cost of hiring, training and replacement). Further, did the armed guards at Columbine prevent the shootings? Fort Hood?

My daughter was at the drill...whatever the intent, the effect was a joke to the kids due to the media circus and they changed to a starter pistol...the bigger issue in the community was that emails were delayed going out and some parents never got them. Had the school explained tot he parents what they were to do there would have been less of an outcry and no national media circus...

No, because the PA system couldn't output the 188 dB sound we'd need for an accurate simulation.

That's because everyone there knew that the drill was duck, then cover...then kiss your ass good bye.

If you are smart, or lucky, or both, you can survive a shooting. Tell me how many nukes have hit a school in the last 70 years.

How will they tell the difference between the "armed intruder" gunfire and the security persons gunfire?

This has got to be the dumbest idea yet.

And maybe special-effects guys can put some squibs on a few students, so they see their classmates "shot." You know, just to make sure they learn how to deal with a one-in-a-million incident.

I like that idea. Not bad. 1 in a million sounds rare, but one can't be too careful regarding training.

I'll try.. Because back then we locked up the loonies in State Funded Mental Hospital's. Then came the era of Reagan and State funding went in the crapper. There's alot more but you get the idea..

We weren't worried about being shot in school. Most of our father's had had enough of real violence and guns during WWII. Not too many people bothered to own them. On the other hand, we had these neat little "duck and cover" drills in case of nuclear attack because crawling under our desks or assuming a fetal position in the hall was going to save us.

My thought exactly! And if this is in the vicinity of Chicago, my guess is these kids know what gunfire sounds like.

Scary Grove School is not desensitizing the kids they are terrorizing them.