The backpacks will sell for $175, and the bulletproof material in them will stop a number of bullets, including 9-millimeter hollow points, according to the news story. One of the inventors, Joe Curran, said the backpacks are a defensive move, and are not playing up the paranoia that schools are unsafe, according to the news station.
He said he and Mike Pelonzi thought of the idea as they watched the events of Columbine High School unfold on television. The Columbine massacre took place April 20, 1999, when two teenagers killed 12 students and one teacher before killing themselves, in Jefferson County, Colorado, near Littleton and Denver. The perpetrators, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, used the following weapons during the assault: an Intratec TEC-DC9, a Hi-Point 995 Carbine, a Savage 67H pump-action shotgun, and a Stevens 311D double-barreled sawed-off shotgun, and a number of homemade bombs.
On April 16, 2007, the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, became the scene of the deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history. The massacre topped the Columbine shooting, as Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and injured 25 more in two separate shootings before killing himself.
Curran said to NewsCenter 5 out of Boston, "I want to keep my kid safe. I don't care what you do — if you want to fight the good fight or fix the world's hurts, I can't help you, but my kids are going to be safe because of these backpacks."
The backpacks are a sad commentary on the way this society treats guns on the streets.
Want to really keep the children in this country safe?
Let's get stricter gun laws on the books, and start another conversation about what exactly the Second Amendment means when guns in schools have children carrying bulletproof backpacks.
That conversation can do more for them than bulletproof book carriers ever could. It could save their lives before the next bullets take flight.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dr Dreadful
Ho boy. Here we go again...
2 - Clavos
Grab your beach chairs and cooler, Doc.
I'll run down to the store and get the beer and ice...
3 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I dunno, guys. Considering that most everybody carries backpacks in Israel, some protection from Arabs shooting at us wouldn't be so bad... Of course at 1,800 shekels, the protection is a bit pricey...
I'll talk to my police commander about seeing if we can't get some somehow for the unit. In a world where fact is stranger than fiction, you never know...
4 - Dr Dreadful
As far as the policing application is concerned, Ruvy, I dunno. Wouldn't good old bulletproof vests work better?
Unless maybe the backpacks are cheaper. It might be the selling point... Especially if fact really is as strange as fiction and your commander is - as in all the best cop movies - a middle-aged, overweight black man who yells constantly, has an ulcer and obsesses about the department budget.
5 - John Thayer
To better understand the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution it is helpful to consider how almost every reasonable person would interpret this amendment if it did not involve something which is considered controversial or politically incorrect by some and idolized by others. Arms in the possession of ordinary citizens meet both criteria. Let's, for the sake of argument, suppose that the Second Amendment dealt with books, not arms or weapons, and read like this: "A well educated electorate, being necessary to the maintenance of a free State, the right of the people to own and read books, shall not be infringed." Does anyone really believe that liberals would claim that only people who were eligible to vote should be allowed to buy and read books? Or that a person should have to have voted in the last election before the government would permit him or her to buy a book? Would the importation of books be banned if they did not meet an "educational purpose" test? Would some States limit citizens to buying "one book a month"? Would inflammatory "assault books" be banned in California?
Emotion in Reading
The meaning of the Second Amendment becomes quite clear if one removes the emotional "gun" issue. Let's restate the 2nd in another context:
A well educated electorate, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books, shall not be infringed.
If this were the law, would only educated people have the right to keep books? Or, would only the voting electorate be allowed to read? Of course not. All the people would have the right to keep and read books, and the state would benefit by having a more educated electorate.
There is NO requirement to be a member of a Militia to have the RIGHT to keep and bear arms. However, the more people who DO, the better the security of the state.
Gary Possert, Lancaster, CA
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State. Our opinion is that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right. [Nunn vs. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846)]
6 - STM
John: bollocks
7 - Dave Nalle
Well put, John. But do you even need to make all that argument when the founding fathers said again and again and again that the 2nd amendment was specifically intended so that private citizens could hold arms to protect themselves and prevent the tyrrany of a standing army. There's not even any ambiguity. Washington, Madison, Adams and Jefferson are all on record stating it unequivocally.
As for this article, it is indeed a sad commentary. But the problem isn't the existence of guns, it's that youth are let run wild by parents and by society and don't have the respect for education that would keep them in class and not engaging in gang violence in the hallways.
And just to hit a third point, your chances of dying in a car when you're a teenager are about 1000 times greater than your chances of getting shot.
The folks producing this backpack are just trying to profit from the unreasoning fear of the gullible.
Dave
8 - Bruce
Funny, guns are used defensivly 2.5 million times per year. That is over 6800 times per day in America.
Hmmm, 32 dead in a gun free zone that, you guessed it, had guns.
When are these people going to get it? Guns SAVE Lives!
Oh, and by the way, my guns are mostly for target shooting, my car is for getting me around and my doctor is for keeping me healthy.
Statistically, I am more likely to be killed in my car or by my (or a) doctor then with any gun.
9 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Dr. D.
My commander is middle-aged. That is where the semblances end. But considering that our best flak jackets only have ceramic tile - not enough to protect from a serious bullet - and are often cannibalized as well - a bullet proof back-pack might afford some protection...
Besides, which is more important around here? Me, or the bottle of water I carry with me?
10 - Deano
Books? you want to reframe your argument on the 2nd Amendmant by subbing in books?
Are you serious?
That's possibly the weakest, most pitiful and asinine attempt to mitigate and re-frame a poor argument I've ever heard (at least since Nalle last compared them to cars, which he does everytime the gun issue arises). If your vaunted belief in the scanctity of your 2nd Amendment can't handle arguing a position that calls guns guns, then, well, STM said it best: bollocks!
11 - Dave Nalle
Actually, Deano, the book comparison is great because it highlights how ridiculous and irrational the anti-gun position is.
Dave
12 - gonzo marx
can someone cite me a link for the amount of times someone was killed by a fucking book in the last 10 years?
i mean beaten to death with it, not because of it's contents...but the last time someone took a book and beat someone to death with it...
schools have a lot of books in them, anybody got a link for the last school killing where someone took out 30 people with a book?
the analogy is patently bullshit on all levels...firearms proponents do themselves NO favors by dragging out false analogies like this, imo
just makes them look bad rather than addressing very valid points...
Excelsior?
13 - Dr Dreadful
Where's Jack Burton? He used to be able to sniff out a gun control debate at a distance of 350 miles...
14 - gonzo marx
he's stuck with some big trouble in little China, Doc...
but i digress....
Excelsior?
15 - Dave Nalle
gonzo, that's why the analogy is so good, because a book really is just as dangerous as an unloaded gun. It points up the contrast between the paranoia and the reality.
Dave
16 - gonzo marx
"because a book really is just as dangerous as an unloaded gun"
bullshit...please show how many robberies have occurred with the victim threatened by a book?
you can find it when it comes to fake or unloaded guns
and the card you attempted to palm was the word "unloaded"...a bullshit ploy, it's about a fired weapon and the effects of the projectile on human flesh
i'm ONLY talking about how bullshit the attempted book = gun "analogy" is..i consider it fallacious at it's basic premise, and thus completely invalid as well as the attempt being actual harm to the validity of the baseline argument
Excelsior?
17 - Matthew T. Sussman
A hollowed-out encyclopedia is a great place to hide a gun.
18 - lynn
Hey Gonzo, What color is the sky on your Planet? Ours is blue!
19 - gonzo marx
hey lynn...mine's blue as well, at least viewed through the zweiss 20x...
your point?
Excelsior?
20 - Leif Rakur
"A well educated electorate, being necessary to the maintenance of a free State, the right of the people to own and read books, shall not be infringed."
The obove analogy to the Second Amendment is imperfect, since "own and read books" is hardly parallel to "keep and bear arms." Why not "keep and bear books"? Think maybe that wouldn't make sense?
If the imaginary book analogy were an amendment to our Bill of Rights, how would it be interpreted? Unless the Supreme Court had incorporated the right against the states through the 14th Amendment, the book-reading amendment would protect only against federal infringement. States could outlaw comic book reading if they chose to do so, insofar as this particular amendment was concerned.
And what would be protected against federal infringement? Not the owning and reading of all books, of course. Books of child pornography almost certaihly would not be protected. How about other books that had no demonstrable relationship to "a well educated electorate"? No right is absolute, the courts could say, rejecting claims for protection under the the book-reading amendment.
21 - Grant
Every anti-gun person believes that the world would be so much safer and more civilized if there were no guns in civilian hands. Apparently they fail to remember that one of the first things that Hitler did was to confiscate guns from the citizens of Germany and any country he conquered. This gun confiscation worked wonders in allowing the German army to round up and kill millions of innocents.
I believe that guns actually create a civilized society. I recently read an article (and I agree completely) that explained it like this.
There are only two main ways to interact with others. Non-violently and violently. Non-violence is talking, communinicating, persuading, etc. Violence is the imposition of one's will upon another through force or the threat of force.
If there were no guns the young, strong and violent prone would be able to do whatever they wished. Noone would be able to prevent a stonger more violent person from imposing their will upon others. The gun ban in Britain has produced these results with an increase in home invasions and violent crime where the criminals use clubs, knives and yes, guns, to get what they want.
Guns level the field. A 250lb murderer is now powerless against a 90 year old lady. If the 250lb thug has a gun he is now equal to the old lady and nothing more. Even if the old lady DOESN'T have a gun the thug has to wonder if she, or someone else, is armed or not.
To lay the blame of violence at the feet of an inanimate object is ludicrous. A loaded gun is no more dangerous than a rock until someone decides to use it, and then the choice to use it can be for good or evil. And the gun doen't make the choice, the person holding it does.
If you want to reduce gun crime you can solve the problems that lead to criminal behavior or you can make sure law abiding citizens have the legal option to carry guns of their own.
I believe both options should be used together.
22 - gonzo marx
no way Americans are giving up their guns..and no one is seriously asking folks to...
it's the "well regulated" bit...
follow the Laws there are already, shit ya license your car, your dog, catching fish...
license the firearms, and enforce the laws
what's the problem?
Excelsior?
23 - Dave Nalle
Gonzo, the objection to the license is who's issuing it. Having the government we're supposed to be armed to defend against determine who can get a license and own a gun seems inherently contradictory to a lot of people.
Dave
24 - gonzo marx
i get that, but there's the whole "well regulated" bit right there in the amendment...
it states folks have the right to keep and bear...granted...but the condition appears to be in the "well regulated"
so i would think that the intent would be for folks to have their well regulated firearms and if the government started fucking with them, the matter of who issued the license is the least of anybody's worries
and from the wording of the Amendment..it would appear that the well regulated militia was supposed to be prepared against outside threats...THAT was why it was crucial...again, if the armed problem is from within, you have a lot more problems than licenses to deal with
Excelsior?
25 - Grant
"from the wording of the Amendment..it would appear that the well regulated militia was supposed to be prepared against outside threats...THAT was why it was crucial"
Outside threats? Let me review...
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
All it mentions is the security of a free state, it never mentions who the possible aggressor is. It could be a foreign power or it could be a domestic one. It may one day even be our own government.
Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying, in a most simple and eloquent manner, "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed untill they try to take it."