Want Marketing? Send Children Towards the Gun...

According to Yahoo News,A security firm that trains schools has announced that they are training children to ATTACK any person carrying a gun that enters a school.

According to the article, the spokesperson for the company stated:

"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.

That kind of fight-back advice is all but unheard of among schools, and some fear it will get children killed.

But school officials in Burleson said they are drawing on the lessons learned from a string of disasters such as Columbine in 1999 and the Amish schoolhouse attack in Pennsylvania last week.

My professional opinion:

As a marketing strategy, Response Options is brilliant. They are getting media coverage like nobody's business, above and beyond what other security firms are getting.

As a strategy to keep our children safe? Response Options completely misses the boat. They are completely ignoring developmental psychology, crisis intervention research and trauma responses.


My prediction: In the event of a school shooting, schools that train their children to follow Response Options's "attack-the-shooter" strategy will wind up with a higher number of dead kids on their hands.

BOTTOM LINE: Strong Leaders Pay Attention to Psychological Research

tags:
School Shooting
guns-in-schools
school violence