Do Bulletproof Backpacks Provide A False Sense Of Security?
We never thought we'd see the day when this product went on the market -- bulletproof backpacks. Manufactured by MJ Safety Solutions, My School Backpack is a bulletproof child's backpack that boasts an exclusive ballistic panel, similar to what's used in traditional bullet resistant vests worn by police and military officers. (And no, it's not an SNL spoof.) Say what?!
The company website suggests a number of ways to use the backpacks for protection: "While wearing the back pack it offers upper torso coverage on the back or it can be used as a shield for frontal protection of the head and upper body," the site explains. All for $175!
With heartbreaking tragedies like Jonesboro, Columbine, and Virginia Tech, it's no wonder that a product like this has been developed. But will a product like this instill a false sense of security in students? For example, will it make kids think that they're totally protected if they're wearing their magical bulletproof backpack? And is even necessary?
According to David Roylance, associate professor of materials science and engineering at MIT, the backpack could help against an attack, but so could a schoolbook. "A large textbook could stop a bullet or a knife but it would depend on the energy of the projectile," he told the Boston Herald earlier this month. And, according to Dewey Cornell, a University of Virginia clinical psychologist and education professor who directs the Virginia Youth Violence Project, the likelihood of being involved in a school shooting is minute. In April, he told USA Today that statistically, each of the 119,000 elementary, junior, and high schools in the US can expect a shooting only once every 12,800 years.
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