One of the most heartbreakingly what-the-hell things about the US is the way that someone entering a school and opening fire is a common enough occurrence that teachers are regularly trained in what to do when that day rolls around.
And thus an elementary school in Indiana enlisted the local Sheriff’s department to come and deliver some training. Which, it turns out, took the form of shooting the ever-loving heck out of a bunch of teachers with plastic bullets.
Plastic bullets will not do the damage of their metal brethren, sure, but they still hurt like the billy-o when fired at your tender educator-flesh by air guns at short range. Teachers got bruises and welts, and at least one had a pellet break the skin. That’s not, historically, what teachers sign up for.
The issue was serious enough to be raised in the local legislature where, according to the Indianapolis Star, “teachers were asked by local law enforcement to kneel down against a classroom wall before being sprayed across their backs with plastic pellets without warning.”
Supposedly this was to teach the teachers what happens if they “cower and do nothing”, a message that might have been conveyed using words, or perhaps a zippy PowerPoint presentation.
Indiana is not alone, at least, in having issues with training sessions: the same report claims that Iowa has paid out a quarter of a million US dollars in compensation for injuries from school shooting training.
Anyway, the gun has reportedly been retired from shooting teacher-duty, which is one less thing teachers need to worry about.