The short answer to this question is “NO,” but fully understanding the answer requires an understanding of terms like “bulletproof” and “bullet-resistant” to know how well students are protected during a school shooting incident. In addition to school desks, this article will also touch on how every student and their teachers across the country could be safer with the right furniture. Creative Industries is ready to be your partner for school bulletproofing solutions.
Does School Safety Matter During the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic?
As the new coronavirus spreads and causes an alarming increase in cases of COVID-19, schools everywhere have closed and students are now learning remotely. With students safely learning from home, school safety has essentially become a non-issue. After all, school shootings are pointless if the schools are empty. But at some point, the pandemic will pass and students will eventually go back to school. And school security will also return as an urgent concern for parents, students, teachers, and school administrators.
Schools have been scrambling like mad to quickly make the transition to distance learning, remote learning, online learning, and eLearning to keep serving their students during the worst of the pandemic. Once everyone gets used to a new way of learning, schools could also be paying attention to what they might do while students are away to be better prepared for school shootings. After all, no one wants to see another Parkland, Newtown, or Columbine take place anywhere in America.
Until we find better ways to keep guns out of the hands of people who commit acts of gun violence, who can we ensure students can safely learn at school? There are various bullet-resistant and bulletproof product options that offer better protection for every student and every instructor from assault-rifle and other types of guns. These products may include school desks, special glass and fiberglass barriers, even the kind of table you find in cafeterias, classrooms, and conference rooms.
How Bulletproof Furniture Can Protect Students from Active Shooters
Let’s take a moment to clarify terminology. In common usage, bulletproof and bullet-resistant are used interchangeably, but bulletproof has become the more common term. But on a technical level, bulletproof means “can stop every bullet.” The problem is that bullets come in all kinds of different sizes, and you can bet there’s a bullet out there that can get through just about anything. Bullet-resistant is the most accurate term because something that is bullet-resistant can stop some kinds of bullets, up to a point. Here at CI we tend to use bulletproof and bullet-resistant interchangeably because it’s the common usage. But in the end, you can’t really guarantee that anything is 100% bulletproof.
Take the bulletproof backpack, as an example. These have become increasingly popular in recent years in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School. While they do offer protection from smaller handguns, they are utterly useless against more powerful weapons. It’s understandable that parents and their children want to do something to feel safer, but it’s also important they understand the limits of any form of protection.
But now imagine students during an active shooter incident being told by their teacher to hide under desks and tables that have specifically been custom reinforced to offer bullet-resistant protection. Here at Creative Industries, we make a wide range of bulletproofing products, and we’ve developed a great method for adding bullet-resistance to desks and tables. Read more about this on our Bullet Proof Furniture for Schools page. As a company, we’re ready to play our part in making every school the safe place it should be for children and youth.
What it Takes to Protect Students, Teachers, and Staff in Schools
No school can afford to ignore the rising threat of gun violence, and we owe it to school students everywhere to do everything in our power to protect them while attending school. The bulletproof desks and tables we can make at Creative Industries provide two-fold protection we call concealment and cover. The “cover” part is the bullet-resistant protection, and because there is a full front panel, you can also hide under it and “conceal” yourself from the attacker (if the solid panel is generally facing the door). Each classroom could have also designed a longer table version of the bulletproof desk that could be flipped upon on its end pushed against the classroom door as an added bullet-resistant barrier to block entry.
Speaking of doors—those could also be modified for bulletproof protection, both in terms of the main part of the door as well as any glass panel it might include. Creative Industries is one of the few businesses around that is a designer and manufacturer of effective bulletproofing furniture and other products for every type of customer.
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