introducing: the first school installation of a Shooting Detection System, brought to you by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and its affiliated contractors.
This $ 100,000 detection system alerts authorities automatically to gunfire with the aim of cutting response time, but it can’t stop bullets or save lives – at least not in any direct sense:
First in the nation, the Methuen, Massachusetts school that tested the DARPA detection system is essentially demonstrating it for other schools across the country to buy it, too. But the biggest factor is not a rise in school shootings, but the fear surrounding the high profile cases.
Fear (not truth) is a big, big seller.
And fear’s best answer now goes for $ 100k. The media has sold the idea that schools are more dangerous and shootings more common, but it just isn’t true. Techdirt makes the case clear:
Ultimately, the system does have the power to, well, alert authorities, but so does the ordinary telephone, the cell phone, text device and etc.
While it’s definitely true that every second counts for anyone under attack, reporting time from bystanders in school shootings has not been the major debilitating factor; by the numbers, police and SWAT response time has been. The simple truth is that the authorities CAN’T be relied upon to save you.
Delayed response time accounts for a big part of the problem, even with the best intentions. Here are just two examples of why response, not reporting, has caused more loss of life:
• In the 1999 Columbine Massacre shooting, SWAT teams arrived on scene a reported 1 hour and 15 minutes after the first report, with the mass media arriving before SWAT did. It took another 4 hours before police officially found the two dead suspects, who reportedly took their own lives.
• In the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, both the university and police authorities were heavily criticized, even through official channels. Lawsuits were filed over the delayed response in both informing students/faculty of the emergency situation and in stopping the shooter. The morning began with the murder of two people in a dormitory at 7:15 am, police response by 7:24 am; university officials weren’t alerted until 7:57 am, and no action was taken by university officials until the conclusion of an 8:25 am meeting discussing how to alert students. Ultimately, an email – criticized as “vague” – was sent to students and faculty at 9:26 am, about 15 minutes before the killer began his mass murder spree in a university hall. Police reportedly responded to this second shooting within 3 minutes, but took another 5 to enter the building, which was obstructed by a chained door, allowing the killer to take more victims.
Also at issue is the fact that the widely-used statistics on school shootings – which claim that 74 school shootings have occurred since Sandy Hook in December 2012 – are bogus and deceptive.
Issued by Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control group founded by billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the statistic starts with the 10 or so school shootings (the intentional mass murder Columbine/Sandy Hook kind) that have occurred in the timeframe which fit the popular notion, where a shooter enters a school and takes out targets.
Then, that statistic deceptively piles on other crimes and incidents which fit – at best – only by technicality:
While all of these are tragedies, and all of these crimes are undesirable in society, it is intellectually dishonest to classify them as school shootings, yet that is deliberately what has been done by the gun control crowd to stoke fear and anger over the issue of firearms. Techdirt argues:
At the end of the day, many people are well aware of the absurdity in schools. Gun free zones have disarmed the very figures within schools (be it a principal, teacher, coach, school officer or even janitor) who could be responsibly packing heat and in position to respond on scene to these worst case scenarios.
But given the insanity of gun free zones, there are a few things to know and be prepared for should a shooting or other disaster strike:
• Self defense training: is essential for anyone interested in their own safety and freedom. Weapons handling andconcealed carry is only one component of it. Martial arts training would be a potentially game changing factor, but situational training experience in dealing with a survival crisis of any kind would also be helpful.
• Situational awareness & mental preparedness: As Daisy Luther pointed out, in a crisis situation, denial can be deadly.” The psychological reaction to a potentially deadly situation cycles through phases of denial, delay, diagnosis, acceptance, consideration and (finally) action.
Your job is cut to the chase as quickly as possible, size up the situation and hopefully apply previous training when taking swift action. Creative and spontaneous answers are perfectly fine; the elements surprise and distraction can aid basic fight or flight response.
• Alternative Self Defense Tools: If guns are forbidden by law, it may not be wise or practical to break that law. But you may still be able to carry (depending on the location and its applicable regulations) other forms of self defense, including several identified by TheArmsGuide.com:
• Pepper Spray, stun guns, or tasers
• Knives
• Tactical Handcuffs(if an assailant can be confined or detained by surprise, the killing will stop)
• Tactical Flashlights
• Tactical Pen (Easily Concealed)
• Self-Defense Keychain
• Knives
• Tactical Handcuffs(if an assailant can be confined or detained by surprise, the killing will stop)
• Tactical Flashlights
• Tactical Pen (Easily Concealed)
• Self-Defense Keychain
Most of these require some serious training to be effective, and many of these may still fall short of the threat of a trained gunman. However, if flight is not an option, you may have little alternative but to try. Use your best judgement in any situation.
First School Installs $100K Shooting Detection System: “Alerts of Gunfire Within 1 Second, Near Zero False Alerts”
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