DetroitNews- The Rochester Hills and Auburn Hills university began equipping its faculty and some students with hockey pucks this month as a "last resort" precaution to throw at any active shooters on campus, officials say.
Oakland University Police Chief Mark Gordon said the idea emerged during a training session he was giving earlier this year on surviving an active shooter situation. Gordon, a former youth hockey coach, said since the university has an ordinance against weapons, one attendee asked what staff and students could bring to prepare themselves for a fight. He recalled once being struck in the head with a puck and said it "caused a fair amount of damage to me." Oakland University began equipping its faculty and some students with hockey pucks this month as a "last resort" precaution in the event of an active shooter situation on campus, officials say. The university faculty union's executive committee took part in one of the training sessions that included the concept in June and soon after, decided to begin purchasing and supplying the pucks, said Tom Discenna, president of the American Association of University Professors. So far, the union has spent $2,500 on an initial batch of pucks. Each costs 94 cents to make and they are printed with the union's logo, Discenna said. They are being distributed for free. The union began passing out the pucks on Nov. 9. So far, 800 faculty members have them, and another 1,700 are expected to go to students. The university's student congress has ordered an additional 1,000, he said. Garry J. Gilbert, director of the journalism program at Oakland University, said when he first heard the idea, he was skeptical. But he signed up two weeks ago for the training held in a classroom on the university's campus. "I have been carrying it (puck) around since I got it. It's on my desk right now," he said. "We got it the same week as the training." Gilbert said his wife, Holly Shreve Gilbert, who is also on the OU faculty as an adjunct journalism instructor, has a puck with her. “We both said, 'Let’s hope we never have to do this. If we fight back, this idea makes as much sense as anything else,'" he said. ----- First and foremost, the fact that we, as a country, are - by design - so powerless against terroristic wackjobs with deadly weapons that the American Association of University Professors, theoretically the creme de la creme of academia, sat down to discuss potential life saving solutions and agreed on a police chief's anecdotal assessment of the painfulness of pucks is about the furthest thing from funny. On the other hand, the fact that a former youth hockey coach who once took a wayward clear to the face from the stick of a prepubescent boy thought the best way to combat gun violence lied within the confines of the rink is, in an extremely depressing sort of way, pretty hilarious. As a hockey fan, I can definitively say that only a hockey fan could think that hockey held the answer to society's biggest head scratcher. There's no chance Mark Gordon even considered baseballs, and a mere mention that, logistically speaking, they are easier to throw with accuracy probably would have made him lose what's left of his mind. In theory, I'd say that the type of person who shoots up a classroom full of innocent peers is the type to run when there's vulcanized rubber to be blocked, as self-acting psychos typically aren't team players. In execution, I'd say it's extremely unwise to use a projectile to draw the direct ire of someone with their finger on the trigger of a loaded firearm. In reality, well, I just can't believe that talking about the campus-wide dissemination of a sporting good as the "last resort" precaution to keeping students safe from mass shootings is the actual reality. Such is life (as we continue to treat it like it doesn't really matter), I suppose.
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