How do you stop a bad guy with a gun when there’s no good guy with a gun around? Maybe throw a hockey puck at him.
A university in suburban Detroit is distributing hockey pucks as a form of self-defense against potential active shooters, according to reports.
Because Oakland University has a no-weapons policy, university police Chief Mark Gordon suggested using a hockey 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,” university police Chief Mark Gordon told Detroit’s FOX 2.
Gordon said to fight effectively, faculty and students need to be prepared to throw heavy objects that will cause a distraction. Gordan said pucks fit the bill and can conveniently be carried in brief cases or backpacks.
“It was just kind of a spur-of-the-moment idea that seemed to have some merit to it and it kind of caught on,” Gordon told the Detroit News.
Upon Gordon’s suggestion, Professor Tom Discenna, president of the faculty union, spearheaded an effort to purchase 2,500 hockey pucks for union members and students, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“Eight hundred of them have been distributed to our faculty members and there’s an additional 1,700 that I’m working with student congress to distribute to our students,” Discenna told FOX 2.
“It’s just the idea of having something, a reminder that you’re not powerless and you’re not helpless in the classroom,” Discenna told the paper.
The black discs were distributed earlier this month and are part of a campaign to raise money for interior locks on classroom doors, the report said.
The effort, spurred by the need for safety education after the Virginia Tech rampage in 2007, will “empower faculty and students to have a plan to have something to defend themselves rather than just freezing in place,” Gordon told the Detroit News.
In May, poll results showed that nearly three-quarters of Michigan’s teachers opposed efforts to arm teachers, the Free Press reported.
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