Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 05/03/07 6:22 pm:
I like that plan. Sounds like the type of thing I would try. I don't guarantee success, but it's better than waiting for trouble to come to you. Strategic offense always beats defense. Offense is pro-active, defense is reactive. Offense usually has the element of surprise. Defense waits until they are surprised by an attack. So when you can, always go offensive.

(Unless you are fighting a superior force... then tactical defense takes over. Prepared fixed defensive positions are a force multiplier of 5:1 in most military handbooks. But we're not talking about fixed defenses in your school.)

I would also head for the chem lab if your school has one. Lots of fun stuff in chem labs like acids that can do some harm to an enemy.

The janitor's closet is another good place... you know what happens when you mix bleach and amonia, right? Heck, even amonia alone can cause some damage. A sponge full of amonia thrown in the gunman's face can give you a few second's advantage.

Thinking out of the box, you could always start carrying a "walking stick" that's a loaded weight. I heard a description of a weapon that was a fancy walking-stick with a hollow, vaccuum-tight shaft filled with a couple of ounces of mercury. The tips of the stick were bronze-plated. What that created was a mace with a punch. The stick alon would be pretty deadly. But if you add the weight of the mercury following up any blow with a second blow coming right behind it, you've got a weapon that can pulp bone into jelly. I don't know where to get enough mercury to pull it off (unless you buy a bunch of thermometers), but it would make one hell of a safety blanket. A nice home-made weapon that isn't illegal and that looks cool too. Just don't talk about it too much around the campus.

What's the old saying... "Prior preparation prevents piss poor performance." Thinking of these things ahead of time and making appropiate preparations may not guarantee your survival. But not thinking about them guarantees your demise.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by kindj on 05/03/07 7:59 pm:
Ahhh, the old "Rule of P's." Words to live by, ain't they?

I've thought of the walking stick thing, though not loaded up like that. I mean, I DO have kind of a bum knee these days (and another bum knee, and my hips are kinda f'ed up on occasion).

Concerning tactical defense: Dead on. We were taught to NEVER assault a building unless we KNEW we had at least a 3:1 advantage, and that just evens the odds a bit. Even with flash-bangs, suppressing fire, and everything else, urban warfare is nasty, nasty, stuff. Especially if you want to use the building for yourself after you take it.

On the other side of the coin, DEFENDING a structure can be kinda fun. Claymores, Betty's in "debris," horizontally mounted toe-poppers, magnesium flares near flammable substances.....hell, you may not ever even need to fire a shot.

However, the boss won't let me rig up trip wires and stuff--something about some "district policy" or whatever. Buncha killjoys. I say it solves our security problem AND our discipline problems all at the same time.

I am, however, following the letter of the law. She said I couldn't USE my stick-puller-downer-thingy. She never actually SAID to put it away or remove it from the room. So it sits rather inconspicuously atop the bulletin board by my desk, which coincidentally enough has about a one inch lip at the top. Funny how things work sometimes. And gosh, I bet if I looked, the three other teachers in my department probably have a similar arrangement (especially since they saw me put mine "away"). Oh, and since I can't use it anymore anyway, I kinda straightened the hook on the end out a little bit.....