No one can argue that safety is a priority concern when a school has an active shooter on its grounds.
One university is pioneering a rather unique approach to helping students and faculty remain safe and fight back against an assailant. Oakland University, near Detroit, recently purchased 2,500 hockey pucks to distribute to students and faculty. The university has a no weapons policy and Mark Gordon, the university’s police chief, initially suggested using a puck to distract a shooter.
“The first thing that came to my mind was a hockey puck. I was a hockey coach for my kids growing up. I remember getting hit in the head with a hockey puck once and it hurt,” Gordon said during an interview with Fox 2 in Detroit.
Gordon said it was a spur-of-the-moment idea which ended up gaining traction amongst the faculty union. Gordon said faculty and students need to be prepared to throw heavy objects that can cause a distraction, saying a hockey puck fits that description.
A regulation hockey puck is 1 inch thick, 3 inches in diameter and weighs between 5.5 and 6 ounces and made from vulcanized rubber. They’re small, solid and a good reason why dentists love hockey.
When I first heard about this, I thought the story was a satire. A complete fabrication that was designed to elicit a couple of chuckles if nothing else. But, if the last several years have taught me anything, it would be even the most gratuitous attempts at satire don’t measure with reality. As the saying goes, “truth is stranger than fiction.”
Granted, having a couple dozen hockey pucks thrown at you would be enough to disrupt whatever it is you’re doing. Coming from someone who can throw a fast pitch, a hockey puck would certainly leave an impression: a nice bruise and a nasty stinging sensation. From someone who can’t throw, it still would be an unpleasant experience.
However, there are a few huge oversights in this otherwise brilliant plan. First, there’s the issue that a puck travels a lot faster when hit by a hockey stick than thrown. Sure, I don’t doubt the university’s police chief when he says getting hit by a puck hurts. I bet it hurts a lot. I’d probably cry. But I’m guessing his frame of reference is a puck hit during a game, not one thrown. Two different beasts entirely. One way of overcoming this would be to also provide socks for students to put the puck inside and use similar to a rock sling.
That solution brings up a second problem: the need to teach students and faculty the most effective way of throwing pucks. In the heat of the moment, it isn’t hard to imagine someone digging their puck out of their backpack or pocket, then throwing the puck in a panic, completely missing the mark. A puck is a one time use thing -- it’s thrown and that’s it. People would need to learn how to make it count, which would mean classes instructing students and faculty in the finer points of clocking someone with a puck. Such class would need to teach students about what to use after they’ve thrown their puck, which would likely be their textbooks. Having students throw their textbooks at an assailant would be especially wasteful however, as the current rates college textbooks are sold at make it more cost effective for students to keep solid bars of gold to throw.
Finally, where does this idea of using athletic equipment as self defense end? I’m sure some slick salesman is working on a pitch as I write this. Does this mean schools will start investing in pitching machines, baseball and cricket bats as a means of protecting students? If so, doesn’t buying athletic equipment for personal protection break the idea of a weapons ban?
Reader Comments(0)