Colleges Confront Violence

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Fromk USA Today

The training drills teachers and students in a "survival mindset," said Randy Spivey, a former U.S. Department of Defense hostage negotiator who is executive director of the center. The center's roster includes retired FBI agents and others with federal law enforcement experience.
"There are two extremes. On the one hand is paranoia, and on the other is oblivion," he said. "We're just trying to get people to keep this on their radar."
The training discourages cowering in a corner or huddling together in fear, Brouillette emphasized at the Kansas City session.
Instead, Metropolitan Community College faculty members were taught to be aware of their surroundings and to think of common classroom objects — such as laptops and backpacks — as "improvised weapons."

You know waht really works great as a weapon? A gun. Number of gunmen stopped with laptops? Zero. Number of gunmen stopped with guns? A lot higher than zero. Of course this is a moot point, as the numbers show. Allow people to be armed and crime usually goes down. (In Missouri it has stayed constant.) Criminals are usually like everyone else...they'd prefer to not get shot. Thos who are going to kill themselves anyway CANNOT be deterred. All that stops them is dying.

Of course some stupids have to object:

The sort of aggressive survival response cited by Brouillette troubles school violence researcher Loren Coleman, a retired University of Southern Maine professor.
Showing students violent images of school shootings could trigger post-traumatic stress or other reactions that resident advisers, graduate assistants and similarly untrained workers would be unequipped to handle, Coleman said.
And the techniques shown in instructional videos such as "Shots Fired" could provide inspiration for troubled students considering their own acts of violence, Coleman suggested.
"You more or less are giving them a blueprint for how to avoid law enforcement," he said.

Not to beat a dead horse...but how many school shootings have been stopped by the police? If you guessed zero, you're correct. Cho needed no help in avoiding the police. The gunmen at Columbine had no problems getting away from police until they ended their miserable lives. The police have been a non-issue in school shootings. Even when they get there, they are completely ineffective. The main reason is that the Police are meant to solve crimes after they happen, not prevent them. The only impediment to a crime is an armed victim. Until we start dealing with defense from that position, we won't get anywhere.