Does school safety mean bulletproof vests for kids as the kids fight back?

At BulletBlocker we sell bulletproof vests. We were founded in with the intention of providing child safety and school safety products with the ability to overlap into workplace safety. We grew into an age where “going postal” was a generational catch phrase and then saw the shootings at Columbine become a catalyst for disenfranchised middle class kids to find fame/infamy through video game-like acts of violence. As we looked deeper and deeper into the problem of school violence and workplace violence, we realized that the problem is bigger and has more depth than we ever imagined. At the same time we realized the breadth and depth of the issues of violence and bullying in general, we noticed that the trend with the most impact on the school safety and workplace safety environment overall, involved gun violence. It was pretty simple to see: People that got shot are either severely wounded or die in an instant. Because of the profound effect of this type of violence and it’s inability to be a subtle form of violence, and the media exploitation of these events, a sense of fear has spread across the country in schools and workplaces everywhere. Just reading blogs and forums in the teaching community makes it clear that teachers are aware of the risks of classroom discipline and enforcing academic requirements, as well as monitoring bullying and other more subtle classroom and school violence issues. Workplace supervisors are concerned about “unstable” workers and peers as well, and often don’t know how to handle workplace disciplinary situations. We are now in the age where security officers escort an employee to their desk to clean it out and escort the employee out of the building/off the property upon a firing. Based upon the known risk and the severe nature of the consequences of under-estimating an individual’s potential for violence, even though these incidents are not happening in a large scale every day, these fears seem to be legitimate.
We do not think that child safety involves children going to school wearing bulletproof vests or that workplace safety requires us to wear bulletproof vests. However, we do believe that real people, not just police, deserve to have the option of outfitting themselves or their loved ones, friends, family with a defensive barrier that is effective against a deadly assault. As past law enforcement officers ourselves, we were already aware of the fact that bulky and uncomfortable protective gear, like the old body armor styles, provide no safety when they are left in the locker at work. The same theory is true of all protective equipment: If it is not practical or comfortable, it will be used less and therefore will not be available when needed. With this in mind, we knew that any type of defensive protection we could design would need to be practical and easy to integrate into normal daily activities. We also felt that it would have to be discreet, so that only the user was aware that they had a protective shield against gunfire. Otherwise an assailant could go to extremes to defeat the passive protection provided. Like any security risk: A targeted, directed assault will most likely defeat passive defensive strategies. At this point we realized that backpacks and bookbags, courier bags, and briefcases were already a well established accessory for every age group in our society. It seems that we start carrying packs to school in our earliest days and carry a briefcase of some sort or a bag to work into our last working days. It became clear that this was the most practical place to hold a defensive bulletproof “shield”. We started with a line of 2 bulletproof backpacks (backpacks we manufactured with a NIJ Tested Threat Level 3a bullet resistant panel integrated into the back panel of the pack) and had instant notoriety in the mainstream media from Boston newspapers to MSNBC, CNN and Reuters to nationally syndicated talk radio. Since then we realized, mostly through consumer feedback, that we needed to expand the product line. A stand alone bullet resistant or bulletproof panel was needed so that anyone could use their favorite pack, case or bag and simply make it into a defensive barrier by integrating the panel on it. We also expanded into travel-on luggage for airline travelers and simple duffel bags. We also saw that we had the ability to make a simple and affordable bulletproof vest by using the panels we were already making, to create a front and back barrier that could be worn in an emergency situation. The intent of this product was to provide more complete coverage for consumers that felt that their job or position in life created a higher risk and would therefore be able to keep the vest product within reach if needed. An interesting approach came out of this idea: A user that sensed a higher risk potential could keep the vest in their pack/case/bag, just like the stand alone BulletBlocker Panel (but twice as thick at 1/2 inch thick total) and would have a bulletproof backpack that he/she could then reach into and take the panels out of and wear as a vest in a critical moment, or as an additional benefit, a BulletBlocker Backpack with the integrated panel or a pack/case/bag with the stand-alone BulletBlocker Panel, could house the vest discreetly, and at the time of need the vest could be worn and the pack/case or bag with the BulletBlocker Panel could be used as an additional shield to cover the head and shoulder area or simply be used to be positioned between the user and the assailant as a shield. In fact, the BulletBlocker Bulletproof Vest has been such a popular item and consumer demand has been so great, that we expanded our line a step further with vests by offering a full concealment vest like those worn by police, with wrap around side coverage and a contoured design to provide more complete torso coverage, again, like the police body armor. The vests we offer are not really intended to be the passive defensive barriers like we designed for the backpacks, briefcases and bags carried by kids at school. We did not intend to imply that kids should wear bulletproof vests to school, these were simply an extension of our rapidly expanding consumer base. We realized that a lot more people feel that they are at risk than we ever expected. As we hear their stories, we also realize that their feels are often well founded. As our education around this issue has expanded, we have learned more and more about the issue of violence in our society. Statistic like “Someone is shot every 18 min. in the U.S. by a handgun” have been cited by reputable sources like NBC news and other news sources. Our constant monitoring of the school violence issue has made it clear to us that, even though the high profile incidents only seem to happen every 6 months to 12 months or so, every week there are more incidents reported around the country than we can keep up on with our news page or blog. If I had to guess, I would venture that 2 - 3 schools are locked down somewhere in this country every school day.
Our most recent additions to our product line have been focused on school safety and classroom safety, as well as survival and preparedness planning. We include survival and preparedness in our product planning because of a huge spike in sales around the time of last October’s stock market drops and the near collapse of the financial system. We saw that civil unrest became a real concern for ordinary people and that lots of people were buying our products for “just in case” scenarios. Please check out our newest product at BulletBlocker.com.
We have done our best to keep our prices low to make our product affordable by real people. Those same people/kids that all have iPods that are more expensive than our BulletBlocker Bulletproof Backpacks or BulletBlocker Bulletproof panels and bulletproof inserts. We know iPods are fun and are extremely popular, but every one of those kids also has a backpack that they stick their iPod in while at class. Parents should also realize that the iPod will not stop a bullet. Our protective BulletBlocker Bulletproof Products not only offer the added safety, but they also provide peace of mind. The kids in school watch more school shootings on Youtube than their parents. This is not only because parents don’t want to know the reality of today’s school safety concerns (don’t we all want school to be like it was when we were kids?) but because most school systems are already practicing school lock down drills or are adopting “kids fight back” / “teachers fight back” strategies, which are telling our kids that school shootings are a risk they are living with already. The kids “get it”. We hear feed back every day and the kids really get it, it’s the parents that seem to be the most resistant to accepting that schools aren’t facing the same concerns as they did when “we were in school”. Kids want to wear bulletproof vests but are happy to have an alternative like a bulletproof backpack.