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April 29, 2013
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Welcome to post-Newtown America: where gun control legislation can’t
be passed but companies are profiting by selling bulletproof backpacks
for children in schools. The backpacks, along with ballistic safety
vests and ballistic shields disguised as whiteboards in classrooms, are
among the products companies are pushing in the aftermath of the Newtown
massacre.
The Guardian reports
that a Denver-based company, Elite Sterling Security, has sold 300
bulletproof backpacks over the last two months. The company has also
received inquiries about their backpacks from 2,000 families across the
U.S. And the company is in talks with schools in Colorado about
“equipping them with ballistic safety vests, a scaled-down version of
military uniforms designed to hang in classroom cupboards for children
to wear in an emergency,”
The Guardian reports.
“If you put it on her back, it almost covers her whole
body,” one Colorado parent whose child wears a bulletproof backpack
explained to the British newspaper. “It was a very hard conversation to
have but she knows that it's something that will keep her safe."
There are also ballistic shields that look like whiteboards
in classrooms. Schools in North Dakota, Pennsylvania and California
have bought them.
Scott Staska, a superintendent of schools in Minnesota,
said the ballistic shields are important for safety. “We have door
locks, safety cameras, and emergency procedures all designed to assist
with an emergency situation and we see the marker boards as one
additional tool to help in the process,” he said.
So while these places may not be taking the National Rifle
Association up on its suggestion to put armed guards in schools, they’re
coming very close to it. In post-Newtown America, schools are becoming
places where seeing bulletproof vests, backpacks and shields is normal.
But as
Think Progress notes,
psychiatrists have warned "that militarizing schools could cause long-term harm to children."
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