Let's Roll

Sometimes, fighting back may be the answer; it seems that a school in Burleson, Texas is teaching kids not to comply with a gunman's orders when it comes to school violence:

Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they got - books, pencils, legs and arms.

"Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success," said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools.

Hat tip: Instapundit and Joanne Jacobs.

Of course, there is no sure strategy to use when confronted with a mass murderer but denial and regressive behavior such as hiding under a desk do not appear to be the best option either. I am not the only psychologist to think this. In his book, Violence Risk and Threat Assessment, forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy states:

I have worked several mass murder cases during both criminal and civil suits, and I have discovered something that has important implications for survival: the people who live through these horrible events are active and aggressive. They either run out of the building, or if cornered, they aggress against the perpretrator, and then run. People who are killed do not run or hide effectively: they usually choose obvious hiding places, like under a desk or table. As a psychologist, this behavior appears to be acutely regressive-like the child who hides in an obvious place, believing that if he closes his eyes and cannot see, he won't be seen.

My guess is that most experts will err on the side of caution and denial such as this:

Hilda Quiroz of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, said she knows of no other school system in the country that is offering fight-back training, and found the strategy at Burleson troubling.

"If kids are saved, then this is the most wonderful thing in the world. If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who's to blame," she said.

So, it is better to let children die while hiding under a table just so no one will later be blamed. Isn't that a little heartless?

Update: Well, the Burleson program has been halted, of course, too dangerous. So kids, just go back to hiding under those desks, that will really stop the violence.