With a dramatic introduction, the Burlington County Times reports on a disturbing hostage drill at the Burlington Township High School.
BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP — The scenario has played out in real life across America: Gunfire echoes through a school and students are held hostage.
Thankfully, school shootings are not all that common and I hope they never have the air of familiarity implied by this opening line. But the phenomenon is concerning enough that it is perhaps understandable that schools would desire to have procedures in place to handle such situations. These drills are also a part of the recommendations spoken of in President Bush’s Conference on School Safety implemented in response to a wave of school shootings last year.
“You perform as you practice,” Superintendent Chris Manno said prior to the exercise. “We need to practice under conditions as real as possible in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they’re as effective as possible.”
What are these “conditions as real as possible?”
Two Burlington Township police detectives portrayed the gunmen. Investigators described them as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the “New Crusaders” who don’t believe in separation of church and state. The mock gunmen went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.
Be on alert for right-wing, fundamentalist Christians. We’re a dangerous set. We’re responsible for how many school shootings now? Zero I think it is, but I may not be able to count quite high enough to keep up.
Do you think the resolution passed last week by the UN Council on Human Rights against the public defamation of religion will be of any help? Probably not. It was, after all, pushed through by the Islamic nations on the council in response to those Danish cartoons and only specifically mentions Islam. Were we to take it seriously, it would probably only result in the inability of any group to claim exclusive truth. Victoria, Australia has a similar law which has already resulted in prison sentences for Christians who sought to warn against teachings in the Koran.
And unlike the violence following the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in a free and independent newspaper, all that is likely to happen in response to this portrayal of Christianity is some discussion and maybe a formal complaint. Regardless of how we are depicted, we tend to be a relatively peaceful lot. Something about “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies and pray for those that persecute you” restrains the believer from turning out in violent protest.
(Yes, I’m aware of “Christian” violence such as those despicable acts occasionally carried out at abortion clinics. These actions, however, are not embraced by the Christian community and are generally condemned by the church as antithetical to the fundamentals of the Christian faith.)
Related Tags: school violence, Christian fundamentalists, defamation of religion
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Hi Dana, I liked reading your thoughts on this. I want to blog about it too since I read Michelle Malkin’s piece yesterday, but didn’t take the time to do it yet.
I was thinking of air raid bomb practices in the 1940s and how when that was practiced there was no altering of who the enemy was. No masking was required.
If today’s schools are practicing against radical Muslims or against the school’s own teenagers on a murdering rampage why don’t they pick one of those two parties to say is the violent person? Or make it a lone murderer type person not affiliated with a group, such as the guy who raped then murdered the Amish school children?
Who is being protected here and why? They could also just use the loner type guy as the ‘bad guy’ and frankly it would offend no one.
This whole thing has me miffed.
I am also angry that over and over people seem to immediately slam Christians. I have a blog post partially written asking why is this happening?
I am not a conspiracy theorist but I am beginning to think there are certain people who want to see Christians slammed, why, I don’t know, I really don’t.
Yeah well.. no surprise I guess (outrage yes.. but no surprise).. last time I heard about a local drill like that here in CT they said the marauding criminals were a band of homeschoolers who wanted to burn down the school or some such other nonsense. There of course was a public outcry that homeschoolers were the “enemy combatants”.
It either goes to show either (1) How stupid the organizers are regarding their choice of terrorists - that they didn’t think of the ramifications of their choice- and that they are just brainless (2) an organized effort to make people/kids believe that certain groups in our society really are the enemy of schools and the education establishment.
They could have very well used the KKK or Islamo-Fascists as the criminal raiders.
Hi Dana,
I have awarded you The Thinking Blogger award.
You can pick it up here:
http://thethinkingmother.blogspot.com/2007/04/thinking-blogger-award.html
Thank you, Christinemm! What an honor!
I agree with you both. If we’re combating a specific enemy, name it. If not, or if we are fearing difficulties from those groups which we are preparing against, why not just leave the group unnamed? We don’t always know the motive from the outset and it is irrelevant to the drill.
One blog I read had a variety of suggestions for groups…I should have included the link. The only one I remember was something about scientologists upset about the depiction of some extra-terrestrial something-or-other. OK, that was terribly helpful. At least it was amusing, although I don’t think any of the groups named were any more known for violent activities. Which of course was the point.
It’s good to know that they did some drill regarding hostages. I guess they are well prepared now. We can only hope that the drill taught everybody how to handle things, especially certain situaions which were not covered by the drill.
Students and teachers need a lot of these kinds drill for their own protection and safety. People, especially children will tend to panic in certain situations. But with the help of drills, maybe they will learn the right thing to do during these situations.
Every school should practice this kind of drill. Like fire drills and eartquake drills, this should be practiced even just once every start of school. We can’t be sure of every school’s situation. Evil minded people can choose any school that they want.
Ed, Frank and Geri,
I’m not quite sure exactly why you felt the need to reiterate this point. I made it myself in the entry:
But the phenomenon is concerning enough that it is perhaps understandable that schools would desire to have procedures in place to handle such situations.
I never argued that the drills were unnecessary. It is the scenario they chose which is ridiculous. If we cannot name the real enemy, then we can leave it as questionable. You can practice all you want without depicting peaceful segments of our society as violent or likely to do such a thing.