Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for October 20, 2006 BOOKS AS SHIELDS

OK...in Texas, they are teaching students to literally "throw the book at 'em"...as in attacking intruders by throwing books, staplers, pencils, whatever!'

Taking a more passive approach, a candidate for State Superintendent in Oklahoma is promoting using textbooks as shields...I kid you not!

He did admit that his proposal had a few "holes" in it...namely that in the heat of the moment, the student would have to decide whether to protect the head or chest with the big, thick, used textbook.

From the Dallas Morning News...

Candidate proposes thick book under every desk for self-defense

Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY � A candidate for state superintendent of schools said Thursday he wants to distribute thick used textbooks to students so they can shield themselves from school shooters.

Republican Bill Crozier of Union City said that if elected, he will require that used textbooks be placed under every student's desk for self-defense during a school shooting. Crozier said thick textbooks will stop bullets shot from weapons wielded by school intruders.

"People might think it's kind of weird, crazy," said Crozier, a teacher and former U.S. Air Force security officer. "It is a practical thing, it's something you can do. It might be a way to deflect those bullets until police go there."

Crozier and a group of aides produced a 10-minute video near Minco on Tuesday in which they are shown shooting math, language and telephone books with a variety of weapons, including an AK-47 assault rifle and a 9mm pistol. The rifle bullet penetrated two books, including a calculus textbook, but the pistol bullet was stopped by a single book.

Crozier said the demonstration, which is available on the Web site of Oklahoma City television station KOCO, shows that a student could effectively use a textbook as protection in a school shooting.

An Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokesman, Lt. Pete Norwood, expressed skepticism at the idea.

"He probably needs to take a look at some ballistics tests," Norwood said. "There are some rifles not even Webster's Dictionary will stop."

Crozier said he got the idea following the April 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo, in which two students killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves.

The idea gained momentum following a December 1999 school shooting in Fort Gibson in which a 13-year-old boy shot five fellow students in the school courtyard. All survived. Crozier said one of the students was saved when a bullet fired at him was stopped by books in his backpack.

Since then, several students have been killed in a string of shootings.

In Bailey, Colo., a 53-year-old man terrorized a high school on Sept. 27 before killing a 16-year-old girl and himself. Two days later in Madison, Wis., a 15-year-old student fatally shot his principal. On Oct. 2, a gunman burst into a one-room schoolhouse in a Pennsylvania Amish community and shot 10 young girls before killing himself. Five of the girls died.

"You don't know where they're going to happen. You don't know when they're going to happen. There ought to be some kind of plan to react to it," Crozier said.

He acknowledged that a single textbook would cover only a small area but said a student could use a book to protect the head or chest.

Crozier faces incumbent Democrat Sandy Garrett in the Nov. 7 general election for state superintendent. A spokeswoman for Garrett's campaign, Kimberly Hawkins Sanders, said Garrett had no comment on Crozier's idea.