No, this is not Babylon Bee or The Onion. Oakland University, located in Auburn Hills, Michigan, has trained its professors and staff to fight off potential shooters with hockey pucks.
Hockey pucks. The professors and staff will use hockey pucks to stop shooters.
Oakland University Police Chief Mark Gordon came up with the idea to use hockey pucks during a training session on how to deal with an active shooter situation since the university doesn’t allow guns on campus.
Gordan used to teach youth hockey. He remembered how a hockey to the head “caused a fair amount of damage.” From The Detroit News:
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.
Discenna said he’d heard that tossing items — like billiard balls — at a possible assailant is well received in the law enforcement community, and when the chief suggested hockey pucks, the union decided to get on board.
“We thought ‘yeah, that is something that we can do,'” he said. “We can make these available at least to our members and a fair number of students as well.”
Gordon admitted no one has done studies on using a puck to stop a shooter, but he believes “a puck is an adequate defense posture along with the use of chairs, staplers or anything else that has weight and can do damage.”
The training program told the staff to run first. If they cannot do this then find a place to hide. Basically only use the puck as a last resort.
From WXYZ:
“Hockey pucks provide the ability to be carried in briefcases or backpacks, are not considered a weapon, and will meet the goal of distracting the shooter,” Gordon added.
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“Part of the strategy for fighting is you need to create a distraction to give yourself time as a group in a classroom to rush the gunman so you can get your hands on the gun and take it away from the shooter,” Gordon said.
800 staff members have already received hockey pucks. The administration hopes to give 1,700 to students. The pucks cost 94 cents each and the union has spent $2,500 so far. The recipients do not pay for their pucks.
A few students laughed at this idea:
“I found it, at first, absurd,” said Adam Kalajian, a third-year student at OU. “What good will it do? I mean, there’s an armed person coming in, why would you chuck a puck at them? What’s it going to do? Nothing.”
Jacob Gora, a fifth-year senior, echoed the same sentiments.
“If I was to give you a puck and I had a gun, would I be able to take you out easily?” Gora asked. “I mean, a puck isn’t going to distract me or stop me from shooting someone.”
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Michigan Oakland University agg annual cost (tuition, books etc)
$23,000
I don’t know what’s more worrisome, the incompetence of the local Police Chief or the stupidity of the university’s teachers.
What is wrong with these people, is there anything more stupid than these policies!
I see.
I seem to recall that such pucks are frozen, and usually launched from the end of a stick with a curved blade. Some players have had their puck clocked at over 100 MPH. Yes, that would cause damage. For instance https://youtu.be/jj8AbjJqcCM
But the victim may be arrested for disparate use of force if caught “high sticking”.
Hello, I am the Dean of Oakland U.
A lot of people are making fun of our, “Puck The Shooter” defense…
We’ve decided to make a few changes.
Since ice seems to be a factor in puck speed, all classes will now be held on the local hockey rink.
Thank You for your cooperation….
“how to deal with an active shooter situation since the university doesn’t allow guns on campus.”
What is the problem? Clearly, since guns aren’t allowed, the bad guys will obey this, right?
When hockey pucks are banned, only criminals will carry hockey pucks.
Armed staff would be much more effective. Double tap, if safe, walk up to the assailant and shoot his gonads off, ensuring that the shooter has no chance in afterlife to claim a virgin 🙂
Only a liberal would force someone to bring a hockey puck to a gun fight.
I don’t think we should discount the potential effectiveness of hockey pucks. After all, Wonder Woman is easily able to defend against shooters with just bracelets on her wrists.
“After all, Wonder Woman is easily able to defend against shooters with just bracelets on her wrists….”
Seriously. When did obama ever do that?
TheFineReport.com…
If the students are getting 357 magnum hockey pucks, it just might work…
They could go all “Dirty Harry” on the shooter….
Student: Ask yourself…are you feeling lucky….Puck..????
So, what happens when a student attacks others, on campus, with his hockey puck? Will the university be liable? Will the students have to pass a background check to receive a hockey puck? Will there be a limit on the number of hockey pucks which any student can carry on campus? Will only brightly colored hockey pucks with pictures of cheerful cartoon animals be allowed and black hockey pucks banned, especially if they have skulls painted on them? These are all serious questions people. They are being routinely applied to other weapons, such as firearms, so why would hockey pucks, which are being dispensed as a WEAPON, not a piece of athletic equipment, be exempt?
I think that the university best hope that no active shooter situation ever occurs on its campus. At this point they are acknowledging that such a threat exists and that the likelihood of such a threat would occur that they are actively arming teachers and students to thwart such an attack. However, it is patently obvious that the measures that they are taking are woefully inadequate. They are actually increasing their liability should such an attack actually occur.
“So, what happens when a student attacks others, on campus, with his hockey puck?”
They’ll hand out guns.
You’re all completely miss-understanding. The pucks aren’t for throwing AT the shooter. They will be signed game pucks worth a lot of money. While the shooter is scrambling to grab them, prospective victims can run for their safe space.
It beats quote politely wait your turn to get shot“. Hockey pucks flying from multiple directions at the shooter’s face, and multiple people charging the gunman from several directions. Within three seconds the first set of arms will have reached the gunman, and within for they should have received several sharp punches to the head, And in less than the count of one one-thousand after that, they should be disarmed and taken to the ground. Multiple people will have been shot, some may die, but the shooter will have been disrupted, and fewer of the shots will be be lethal. By acting fast, the defenders will be able to disarm and disable the shooter before they themselves have lost blood and become helpless. With aggressive action it should be all over in about six seconds, certainly less than 10.
Compare this to the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: The gunman had over an hour to track down and executed targets with aimed fire. There, most potential defenders were over 40 years old, but still the strategy of trying to run and hide clearly failed, as it always will.
The shooter’s presence is not announced until they have already closed with a room full of targets; they never provide warning when they are a block away. the choices are fight and possibly die, or present your back and certainly die.
But the option to fight only works when others join in, if people fight one by one they will be cut down one by one.
Teaching a community passivity is teaching it to die. The United States and the west are being tested, and so far we are mostly failing and refusing to change.
I am sure this post will make some people angry, but when knives or bullets are reaching through one’s back that will not matter. The United States is no longer an ethnically and morally unified country, it has deliberately been split into factions. Divided countries eventually have attacks between tribes, it is only a matter of when and how.
Sorry, Beagle, but it doesn’t work that way.
You are making a whole herd of assumptions which rarely turn out to be true in shootings of large groups of largely unarmed subjects. In the first place, people are not trained to attack an armed opponent. They are trained to flee. And, if they are individually trained, they rare act in concert. They get in each other’s way and actually end up working against each other. It takes the military a long time to train infantry personnel to charge into the guns. And, many of them are still unable to do so.
What is much more likely to happen, in your scenario, is a few people will throw a puck, before they are cut down by gunfire. No one s going to rush the gunman, simply because they will be mowed down before they can reach him. If he has to reload during the attack, then a properly trained group may decide to rush him. Whether they are successful, depends upon a number of things. Realistically, all the gunman has to do is to retreat while continuing to take the group under fire, which will allow him to down more before they reach him.
Here is how you address this type of thing. If the threat is real enough to contemplate arming teachers and students with hockey pucks to defend themselves from it, then a much better answer it to control access to the facility, scene people entering and having a highly trained and equipped reaction force gto stoop an attacker as soon as he arrives. Of course, the people responsible for this ridiculous idea do not believe there is even a remote chance of such an attack occurring. Of course, neither did the Broward County School Board. This is simply a feel-good measure to make people feel that they are protected.
Better off just going with the sticks. You’ll be dead anyway, but maybe you’ll get a few licks in first.
As police chief Gordon said, a hockey puck, when thrown, will do as much damage as a stapler. Exactly. The Puck ‘n’ Stapler Brigade Against Active Shooters. PSBASS, pronounced “Piss Be A$$.”
Most of the shooters are wearing body armor so this would be like throwing a puck at a goalie. That’s a penalty. “Illegal use of hands”.
And then, as we have seen again and again as they insist on throwing pies at Ann Coulter and missing from only five feet away, most liberals throw like girls. One BOA accuracy. Not effective.
You mean… “throw like Obama”.
I think “girls” is more correct. Most of them probably DO throw better than Obama.
We trust teachers with our children but not with firearms. Interesting.
They’d do less damage with guns.
Let’s just admit what they are doing here. They are encouraging teachers and students to use primitive projectile force (pucks, billiard balls, staplers, rocks?) to defend against modern ones (guns) and only after running and/or hiding fails.
Luddites.
I think the Progs are misunderstanding the hockey term “slap shot” thinking it means the puck is an equalizer for any other type of “shot”. Post a sign that any active shooter must have a face off in the corner prior to shooting up the place….because signs work.
Perhaps this is really a staff reduction plan.
Rush the shooter. If you are in an unarmed group, that’s the *only* solution that will reduce bloodshed. Get both hands on the gun if you can because revolvers won’t shoot if the cylinder won’t rotate and automatics can’t cycle another round if you’re holding the slide. There are no rules in this fight. Go for the eyes, claw at the face, get them *down* and away from their gun and beat them like a rug.
Throwing a freaking hockey puck only makes you the next target. Hiding under a table, likewise.
Okay. Well, I suppose it’s better than nothing…. but in the absence of armed staff/students, a dozen or more students throwing text books, laptops or tablets, chairs or desks would probably be more effective. The trick is going to be teaching the students to actually throw items instead of hiding behind them.
Onto something here. Maybe if we could get the energy of the puck delivered, but in a more accurate and repeatable manner. We might have to pare down the pucks mass, so we have to increase its velocity. Somewhere in the 800-3000 feet per second (fps) range. The lower the fps the higher the mass, so for 800fps we should pare it down to maybe 185ish grains. 3000fps we can get away with 55 grains, give or take. To deliver this accurately at a distant “gunman” or men (or xers, depending on which institute of higher learning we are speaking of) we should also consider making this puck aerodynamic. Maybe shaped like an acorn or the tip of a missile. Adding some spin would also increase accuracy. We can propel these pucks using modern powdered explosives, safely contained in cartridges. We might need a spring fed device to deliver these cartridge encased pucks into an accurate delivery system. I envision an accurate puck delivery system as being a rigid frame with a slide with integral sighting device, operated using the energy of the spent modern day powdered explosive to cycle the spent cartridge and introducing a new one from the magazine. This way we can have multiple pucks to “throw” at a “gunman” or “shooter” trying to kill as many people as he can with a gun and bullets. Professors and students who have never so much as thrown a baseball much less a hockey puck can deliver the mass of a hockey puck accurately and at such velocity that they might actually have a chance at stopping such aforementioned “shooter/s.”
I went to a mass shooting and a hockey game broke out.
800 staff members have already received hockey pucks.
The administration hopes to give 1,700 to students.
The pucks cost 94 cents each and the union has spent $2,500 so far.
The recipients do not pay for their pucks.
800 * $.94 = $752,,,,, where did the other $1748 go?
Administrative fees no doubt from what I remember of my college days.
There’s a Don Rickles joke in here somewhere.
Having been on a two way rifle range several times, I’ve found that firearms (particularly an assault weapons either Rifle, 5.56mm, M4 or Machine Gun, HB, Caliber .50, M2) to be pretty effective in dealing with shooters. I’m guessing even something like a .22 derringer or cheap .380 would be far more effective than hockey pucks.
But what do I know, I only have a DD-214, not a PhD.
Careful. There is a civilian “expert” here named Barry who will passive aggressively assert he’s never heard retired military refer to a DD-Too-14 as a DD-214, implying you are a fraud.
BTW, where is Barry anyway? I would love to get his civilian expert opinion on throwing rocks at an M16A2.
Why don’t they teach them to pull the assailant’s jersey over his head?
Obie 1
And then they could give the shooter a power wedgie…!!!!
They could have hired the late Ricky Jay to teach students under fire to throw playing cards:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1ZGIN0UqJE
What the hell:
Elon Musk’s flame thrower:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqjvtcnI09A
If you’re within four feet and have a deck of cards on you.
Looks like the Chief of Police went through this and downvoted everyone mocking his idea.
We can laugh, but they’ll still be more effective than the entire Broward County Sheriff’s Dept.
They’d be better off with 12-oz cans of soup.
They are heavier and hurt more when thrown.
And the survivors can eat the soup.
When are the sticks issued?