During the Arab Spring, Egyptian protestors armed with rocks face off with the country’s central security police. (Photo: EPA)
The gun you have is better than the gun you don’t, even if it’s a .22 or a *cough* .38. But rather than arming teachers against intruders, one Pennsylvania school district announced last week a plan to arm students with a five-gallon bucket full of “riverstone.”
Now, after being soundly mocked by social and mainstream media alike, Blue Mountain School District Superintendent David Helsel has announced plans to hire a real security guard to protect the district’s students.
Helsel told Fox News that the influx of attention came from “social media posts that took comments out of context and misrepresented our actual planned responses to armed intruders (particularly with the planned use of stones).”
He added: “This unfortunate circumstance has increased our concern regarding the possibility that something may happen because of the media attention.”
The schools do not allow teachers to be armed, but Helsel said that maintenance personnel have also acted as security guards in the past.
SEE ALSO: Academics Find School Shootings Are Not More Common Than They Used to Be
The comedy of errors began during Helsel’s testimony before the Pennsylvania state legislature, in which he outlined the school’s new safety program, ALICE (Alert, Lock Down, Inform, Counter and Evacuate).
ALICE incorporates more than just stone-throwing. But that’s the policy that earned Helsel national attention.
“Every classroom has been equipped with a five-gallon bucket full of riverstone,” he said. “If an armed intruder attempts to gain access to any of our classrooms, they will face a classroom full of students armed with rocks, and they will be stoned.”
State legislators failed to ask the obvious question—whether Helsel was also stoned when he developed this proposal. But they did inquire if slingshots are allowed to help the students pummel the intruder.
“No,” he said. “We have some people who have some pretty good arms. They can chuck a rock pretty fast.”
“At one time, I just had the idea of riverstone,” Helsel told local media. “They’re the right size for hands, you can throw them very hard, and they will create or cause pain, which can distract.”
“Obviously a rock against a gun isn’t a fair fight, but it’s better than nothing,” he continued. “I’m not sure why some people feel that it’s more appropriate to be a stationary target under a desk in a classroom rather than be empowered to defend yourself and provide a response to deter the entry of an armed intruder into their classroom.”
Problem is, most kids do not know how to throw….They are too busy on there phones…
Maybe a class on how to throw…..
Stones . Something liberals don’t have . Brains either .
LMAO!!!!…Another Neurotic Liberal in charge in this case the School Adminstrator trying to solve a “problem” that has nothing to do with the problem…..Liberals suffer from such mental disease…….They have had guns in schools back in the 1950’s and 1960’s doing markmanship programs, nothing happened then..Today is brought to you by a series of social erosions starting with the family unit and lack of discipline respect for other people, their property, lives, etc, etc, etc, etc . These social erosions started with the hippie DogS**T culture of the 1960’s and the self esteem movement in the early 1970’s centered around individualism a selfish, self aggrandizing social change…..This is what it has brought but NO..its the GUNS!!!!!…yea right….
If they arm stundens with 5 gallons of stones and a armed man armed with stones. Comes and starts slinging stones and kills a child what would you call it a mass stoning of our children… What a joke in our school systum…
Or, another one of my brilliant ideas to stop a violent, mentally disturbed piece of sh** with a machine gun, would to have each & every student as well as all faculty, assigned a highly sophisticated spitball straw, with the “ ammo” being copper bb’s which have been dipped in a mixture of different prescription sleeping pills that have been liquified. So this way, the shooter is not permanently injured in any way and he won’t be able to bring a lawsuit against the school district for any permanent injuries.
I think that I have a better solution then a bucket full of rocks. My suggestion is, at the entrance to every single classroom, right above the classroom door, they attach a 2 x 4 piece of wood. Running across the entire length of the 2 x 4, you attatch as many bottles of hot sauce that will fit, side by side, all facing down, and all connected to a single piece of string that ONLY the properly trained teacher will have control over who will simply pull the string as the gunman enters said classroom, burning his eyes, therefore ending said attack.
Mixed feelings about this, but think armed guards and infrastructure hardening is a much better plan.
I can’t believe that the Schuylkill, PA County Attorney would ever sign off on such an absurd proposal. If you take a moment to consider the legal implications of having a 5 gallon bucket of rocks for the express use of repelling a deadly force encounter, any Attorney with a brain would advise against it considering the legalities. The possibilities of potential lawsuits arising from a stoning incident are far greater than an arming teachers in the classroom. (are the rocks inspected, approved, how often, by who, negligent discharge, what determines use of deadly force by stoning and who authorizes the use, who is liable if a student throws a deadly rock after the threat is stopped, How many lawsuits there will be if they don’t work. I could go on)
What do you expect from a Bunch of Moron’s. The Idiot that came up with this solution should be stoned to death.
Rocks might be the way bullied kids can get back at their antagonist, instead of a gun!
With people like this in charge of schools is it any wonder our kids remain unprotected?
Bring rocks to a gunfight? Our national security is based on sufficient lethal force enough to deter any thought of an attack. Why are these morons unable to reason this out. Maybe they are the problem.
As for arming teachers who can’t administer student disipline or give aspirin without a permission slip is a bad idea.
I keep hearing it’s all about the children, but in essence it’s all about the money.
It is a great idea. I just bought my kids and myself ar500 backpack armor because we have no other legal options. The way that schools systems are these days is that you cannot mention weapons especially guns. I cannot carry on college so I will have to do my best to use my armor to escape or fight. Not to mention, I do have a ccw. So this is a great idea because at least they have a fighting chance to crack the killers head open. Moreover, it is one step in the right direction of upping school security and arming staff with actual weapons that would be effective. If he allowed teachers the option to carry concealed he probably would be sued in this social climate. So he pointed out the obvious and made it controversial so that even the most illogical people would say \”WTF, why not protect them better!!!\”
2a guy, excellent!! We, as Americans, have to think outside the box. Learn good hand to hand skills and never be afraid or concerned if you just walk away, when possible. Keep you and all your loved ones safe. God Bless!
Sticks and stone may break my bones but words can never hurt me , except bullets they can kill you. This himghly educated mental and intellectually challenged idiot couldn’t take the heat of being mocked for his crazy idiotic idea so hims is crying boo hoo foul. Shame on you haters for mocking me and taking out of context what I meant. Yeah right sir Einstein lacks a lot. You just kind of removed any doubt anybody might have had about your intellectual level. Must have gotten his education from cannabis university. That’s about the only high education he has ever had. Bring rocks to a Gun fight. Can you imagine in the old days of the Wild West shoot outs. Stand still there hombre so I can hit you with a rock before you shoot me
Just to be fair to this superintendent I would like to propose a test for his idea. First, let’s replace the armed Secret Service detail around former president Obama with rock carrying anti-gun protesters. Next, Michael Bloomberg, Al Sharpton, and all the anti gun celebrities should be required to replace their armed security details with rock carrying Antifa members. Finally, all security personnel at the next democrat convention are to be armed with only with a bucket of rocks. If this works out as expected perhaps the superintendent will reconsider his idea.
To assume that a room full of students would stand against a gun and throw rocks ignores human nature. The kids would duck and try to hide.
After 9/11, our politicians concluded that the only way to keep our aircraft safe from hijackers was to install Metal Detectors and Screeners in all of our airports.
Those measures have proven effective since then, and would be just as effective in preventing the inevitable next school shooting, but it isn’t happening, why?
Could it be that expensive Corporate owned aircraft are more important than the safety of our school children?
Or do they know we can’t afford them because of the MASSIVE tax cuts given to Corporations and the Wealthy?
There will be another school shooting, and when it happens, the cries for gun control will grow exponentially!
When I was in the position of students with rocks versus armed nut job the score was: students with rocks – zero, armed nut job – 47. Not good odds.
Testing our gag reflexes are you . . .
I can hear the battle cry now! “Safety’s just a stone’s throw away!”
As an aside… if I threw a handful of stones one right after the other would I become the equivalent of the dreaded automatic stone throwing weapon? Also, if I threw them in rapid, sporadic succession would I become the equivalent of a semi automatic stone throwing weapon? And what about just one at a time when I get the opportunity? Would I become a single stone throwing weapon?
And finally, just the fact that I’m throwing stones in the defense of myself and others would I be reviewed as an “assault weapon” or a “defense weapon”?
There’s far more questions too. What’s the authorized size of the stones? How many can one possess at any given time? Do we have to carry them open or can we conceal them? If we can conceal them do we need to obtain a concealed stoner permit? If so, what’s the permit requirements? What’s the cost of the permit? Would I be subjected to a criminal background check to ensure I’m qualified to carry stones?
This is insane! It opens a whole Pandora’s box of Supreme Court challenges, policing issues, needs for governing legislation, regulations, etc. And how does one acquire the stones, let alone register them? Will there be a qualified dealer licensing requirement established by our guv’ment? Will those stone dealers be subjected to background checks and pay fees as well? Are agates considered stones? What about thunder eggs and petrified wood? Do those examples need special licenses?
There’s much more that needs to be ferreted out prior to accepting this whole “stone the bad guy” idea… besides? who decides who the bad guy is? Would that be decided by the victim? The potential victim? The intended victim? or the innocent bystander who was caught in the cross throws?
And that’s just a beginning.
Are they going to have practice stone throwing? Make it part of PE?
Students will be limited to ten stones at a time. Any student caught with eleven or more will be, you guessed it, stoned.
Obviously, you guys have forgotten about David slaying Goliath.
Actually, the school should hire retired baseball players to throw the rocks. Of course it wouldn’t hurt if they carried an AR15 as a back up
I think a IWI Tavor would be a better choice, although more expensive.
This is a really bad idea, could cause mental trauma to some students just being in the same room with assult stones…and who is going to provide the training for their use… just can’t allow anyone to pick up a rock!
Sadly, none of the kids or the teacher/s would be able to even – THROW – a river rock, because they never took PE and learned by participating in teams how to throw anything…
And even more sad, who is going to be strong enough to pick up a bucket full or river rocks and put it in the classroom/s ???
None of these weak people, who only have 2 thumbs worth of strength…
Reading through all of the comments I think we’re all in agreement that a bucket of rocks is a bad idea so let’s start the conversation over…. Instead of slamming the ridiculous let’s show the brain dead how to solve the problem….
In everyone’s opinion??;
“WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST DEFENSE TO DETOUR AND PREVENT SCHOOL SHOOTINGS?”
Here’s mine;
If you haven’t heard yet, the shooter that killed so many in the nightclub in FL was actually going to Disney World. When he arrived at DW he observed armed security personnel and quickly concluded that he needed to pick a venue that was more of a Gun Free Zone. The rest is history…
We all know that Gun Free Zones work ‘Really Well” for deranged gunman looking for a slaughter. Yes the term “Dumb as a Rock” has a resounding sound much much louder than gunfire. The anti-gun, gun grabber establishment if you listen to them speak are, in the most part about as dumb as a rock. Most have no idea of what they’re talking about when it comes to guns much less a good idea to prevent more school shootings. Banning AR’s and bump stocks is like arming yourself with a bucket of rocks.
Roughly 85% of our nations police, you know the guys that fight criminals everyday, are in support of conceal carry. Why, is because they know everyone’s first line of defense begins with themselves. The annual statistics of people that conceal and deploy their weapons in self defense is staggering! 500,000 into the millions, its hard to calculate because not all who defend themselves report criminal assaults – they just take care of business.
My guess is you know where this is going. Armed security and those who conceal carry is our 2nd line of defense to protect our children in schools, our fellow man and women in church, our friends and family members at social venues. If the sickies know that they will be met with equal or superior fire power, they will seek an easier target. Unless of course they are looking to die, that’s called suicide.
The “1st” line of defense is social awareness. The teachers, administrators, students, parents, friends, social services, local authorities, the FBI, you and I and on and on. Report, report, report anyone exhibiting bad behavior until you get resolve. Don’t tell someone and then drop the ball –> tell others and keep reporting until its handled to yours and everyone’s satisfaction. We all know Parkland was a big F-UP on behalf of all of the authorities. So let’s blame guns, , bump stocks, the NRA and everyone who owns a gun legally and responsibly for killing our nations children.
Sorry but a bucket of rocks is smarter than this mindless thought process and here is why;
“How many times do mass shootings need to happen until the mindless realize Gun Free Zones don’t save lives?!”
“There is 357 MILLION guns in America, let’s ban ‘Fully – semi-automatic’ guns and bump stocks to control mass shootings!”
“Schools, churches, nightclubs, concerts are No Place for guns! How’s that working out so far?!”
“How many times do you have to get hit in the head with a rock until common sense enters the mind?!”
As predicted in the 60’s – –
The Stoners are running the asylum!
Throwing stones at people? That will guarantee that the students involved will get some extra education: Getting arrested, Tried, and possibly sent to prison. Any stone heavy enough to use as a weapon, thrown or not, becomes a Lethal Weapon if used to cause harm to another.
That Superintendent could be charged with “Contributing to the delinquency of a minor” or even “Accessory” should a student follow through on his suggestion.
There are ways to make schools safer, but this isn’t one of them.
I wonder how stone throwing practice went on the playground?
Just wait for it! The buffoons will soon be banning the very thing they approved, for safety!
Well Folks as a Gunner that has been shooting for 54 years now I Told My Grand-Buddies, both girls age 5 and 6 a bunch of stuff like Duck, find the shooter, run away, hide, keep track of shooter if possible, if every falls apart Throw Stuff, Jump on there head, grab their gun in the middle and hold on tight, head butt the balls or same area for a girl as they ain’t tall enough to hit the kidneys or throat, knees are within their reach.
Honest, and the schools are starting to teach this to our 5 year old Girls and Boys. Sad. I have been on a roll, and my suggestions is since almost every Government Building is gun free and well guarded, we should take at least half of our money that they are spending protecting themselves, and use it to protect our schools.
Now before you say Troll, Kiss off. I own enough firearms to be in the top 5% of owners, and I ain’t done buying yet. Enough as I am off shooting for the first time this week. I am going back to my roots in my Daily, thus porting a few light and short 357s. Great Fun. Free Your Mind, Be Party Blind.
Great comment! I’m right there with you Greg. At 65 yrs of age I’m still teaching the grandkids, nephews, nieces, etc. how to handle guns, how to defend themselves if they’re unarmed or don’t have an opportunity to engage a gun, how to disable a bad guy with a simple blow, etc. and I’ll keep educating and testing them until the day I die. I own guns… not copious amounts but those guns I prefer to own, carry, shoot and plink with. I reload my own ammo and with a good stint in the army and over thirty years of law enforcement under my belt I’ve been a target plenty of times and I’m living and walking and talking and, for the most part am still in one piece with a few scars, hitches, crinks and pains so I guess I “done good” over the years. I was told by my Dad, a retired WW2 Pacific Theater veteran (Alamo Scouts) to walk away from a fight if you can but never lose it if you can’t walk away. So far, so good. He also said “family first”! He was right… but then again, I knew it back when I was a young pup too. The guv’ment pisses away more of our taxes on their pet projects than we can afford. Yet our schools are target rich environments to insane fools. They’ll kill whether they have a gun, bombs, knives, clubs, ropes, whatever. They’re wired to destroy until they’re destroyed. I mocked the rock throwing idea earlier but hey, anything’s usually better than nothing. But as much as I hate to go there I’ll suggest trained, armed officers, discreetly placed tends to temper the insanity.
They should have used a box reminding people that the idea is as dumb as a box of rocks.
Don’t bring a rock to a gunfight, snowflake.
“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” ~ Mencken
Try throwing stones at the police dept. No just kidding don’t do that
I know an Allen Lawson. Washington State, non-liberal area, wildland fire stuff, putting puzzles together. If you’re him then drop me a line. My email’s listed on this site. Or at least I was required to enter it. If not, I apologize for the interruption.
I shall walk through the valley and the shadow of death and I shall fear no evil?? As long as I have my Pennsylvania River Rocks? Mr Bad Man don’t you be a fool of we gonna stone your a–??
Maybe we need to re-evaluate what we teach in school. How about the basics? Teach survival.
Lol, ok. So throw rocks at an active idiot! Sure, lets issue rocks to the security agents for every Democrat and liberal gas bag saying it’s ok.
The rocks must not be able to cause long term injury or death! And only ten rocks allowed per student or liberal supoorter.
Ok👍 How about shouting mean things at an attacker. Only as long as the criminals feelings aren’t hurt or cause mental anguish!
Seems the laws today favor criminals!
Tell you what, enforce laws on the books, and that alone will decrease occurrences of mass murder.
So when an armed officer “rocks as ammo causes a bump larger than 3/8ths inch will there be administrative leave? If a student who hates anithers ethnicity and they throw a rock at as many there are that he or she hates, what are the charges.
Well, I see nothing but more laws needed to govern rocks,cars,trucks planes or any other fkn thing that may cause either, mental upset or a slight bruise! Fk off liberal p**sies!
As we know all criminals are guilty of something, but when you become a criminal by elected officials who use laws to make criminals out of people who do the 9-5 because you’re an asshole, then that people are not criminals, the government is!
Let me address a couple of your incredibly ignorant misconceptions: first Republicans are the proven gas bags not liberals aka Democrats. Second WTF is a supoorter ? or an anither? The rest of your post just seems to be a unintelligible rant about things that make no sense whatsoever.
Ken……..you are a typical grammar/spelling nazi liberal democrat gasbag. And probably have severe gender identity problems that only your same-sex partner would ever understand. Please feel free to correct any spelling errors or bad grammar you can detect in my greetings to you, you dumbass.
Ken, go back to your classroom son. Your student’s be-a-waitin’.
Is no one concerned about the innocent kids who may be hit by rocks in the crossfire or ricochet? Whatever happened to using metal detectors and a guard at the entryway? You set off the metal detector and the doors lock automatically preventing entry and the guard responds to the threat. No need to arm the entire faculty and staff.
Look, it’s not what we want – but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to train kids NOT TO BE SHEEP WAITING FOR SLAUGHTER! Teaching them that it’s better to attack than to cower in a corner is a step in the right direction. Give them their bucket of rocks… we’ll keep working on getting their teacher a CCW, but give them their bucket of rocks.
I get the sentiment and I’m surprised there aren’t at least a few more who do. We’re much too polarized a crowd to do much with it though. Simply put, with laws as they are, there isn’t much else to do and this showcases that idea perfectly. We’re reduced to hiding or throwing rocks… I am amazed that I don’t hear any proposal for a crowd control pepper spray’s mounted on the wall like fire extinguishers and in every classroom. It would hinder a hell of a lot more than rocks and be a lot more effective than the CCW’s who shot their firearm once when they qualified, if that. Either way, we aren’t going to be terribly popular here I bet.
This is the true purpose of this idea. Let them be active in defending themselves. One person with a rock may not deter an active shooter but 30 kids chucking rocks at an attacker will not do that again especially if the kids have more than one rock each. Remember when you were taught to stand up to bullies and not back down? This idea, while not a perfect solution, will be better than kids huddled in a group together begging for their lives. Fish in a barrel. Another school had a similar idea a few years ago but with canned food. Nothing like getting assaulted by 60 cans of soup or peas to make you stop assaulting kids. This would only work if the teacher would finish the job with a chair or other appropriate response even if a firearm wasn’t available.
Bu-Bu-Bu-Bu-But what if a student actually lands one between the eyes of the shooter? That poor, misunderstood shooter might get hurt – How howwwibulll!!! He’ll need counselling for his PTSD, and the eeeeeevil student who assaulted him with a rock will face charges, for sure…….. Yes, I could actually see this Full-Retard scenario happen.
Is helsel originally from Kali, or has he just spent a lot of time there and got infected with Teh Stoopidz?
This should work fine, they just need to make sure that they use river stones and only river stones. God forbid if they had evil black obsidian or evil basalt A.K.A. assault rocks. My god think of the carnage. It’s a slippery slope, today they want river stones, tomorrow obsidian assault rocks. We must first and foremost think of the children. I don’t know about you but I don’t trust our schools to effectively make sure that no evil black assault rocks are in the bucket.
ROTFLMAO…
“One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small…” — Jefferson Airplane
I wonder which pill (or, combination thereof) this guy was taking that day.
It’s gotton ridiculous what like in the Middle East while they’re armed with powerful weapons students will be back in the Stone Age Bible throwing rocks lol
Well I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.
Because if it’s effective it’ll only be a matter of time before “someone” is trying to ban assault rocks
Those assault rocks have to remain in the bucket in the classroom unless the student has a license to own and carry the rock and has been trained to use one. Otherwise someone will carry one out of the classroom and injury another. This simply is out of control. There has to be a lid on the bucket with a lock that only the teacher can open. What has this world come too? Can we all just get along?
This is how the liberal media and the anti-gun or anti-you-name-its come in. A tragedy occurs and they scream for more laws. More laws!
Its all hysteria and hype. But you look at the people advocating these new laws, you find out they have armed security themselves with automatic weapons to boot! “Guns for me, not you!”
Politics has turned into a filthy, rat-infested business of mob-rule and hysteria and hype making.
Self-driving cars are killing and maiming people left and right. Do the media and the left-wingers cry out to outlaw self-driving cars? No! Of course not. But a car IS a weapon. And cars kill and maim more people than guns.
As easy as it is to mock this story, it has been blown way out of proportion. Blue Mt. school district has had armed personnel for a while.
The ALICE program is also a step in the right direction. It is better than the usual plan of hiding in place in a group of soft targets. It puts the attacker in a defensive posture that could save lives other than giving them no resistance what so ever.
As long as the shooter doesn’t choose paper, it may be somewhat effective. Adding some scissors to the buckets would be a good idea to combat that possibility.
As an added measure, the stones should be soaked in boilo, with a lighter kept wth every bucket. (only Skooks will get this)
LOL! Love the humor! But, also thanks for the info re: the article and the statement that it’s been blown out of proportion. That’s a bit more grounding than an all out free for “all shoot” zone. It seems the writer failed to mention a critical part of the story.
Leninism/Stalinist Communist agenda, to initiate acts of terror, even by false flag operations, must continue so to turn police against the common citizen, for the purpose for government to have reasonable justification to impose militarized police force with illegal and unconstitutional search and seizure authority upon the peasant of society, purge and sought out the Communist infiltrators and hang them for national treason and espionage!!!
So the US Army is going to drop grenade qualifications because most of todays youth don’t have the strength to meet expectations, yet they are strong enough to fend off an armed attacker by throwing rocks. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
If MOST of the students were actually willing and ABLE to throw stones well (accurately and with force) then you could deter a gunman for a bit… nettle he decides to stand to the side of adoorway and just fire blindly into the class around the doorjamb. It would require that MOST students be brave and self-possessed enough to act rather than simply cower and wimper. They cloud throw like girls or blindly from under a desk. Not likely or practical.
So this is an “educator”. Maybe he also teaches how to put hexes on people. Really. What an idiot.
It is a good idea. It would have made a difference in many of the school shootings. No one else has come up with much that would have protected school kids. Making new laws, about guns, that won’t make a difference sounds good but is worthless to the student with no defence. It would have helped protect the teacher that tried to save their kids.
Wise man says, “Never bring a rock to a gunfight”
Will they be 9mm stones, or .45 caliber boulders? SMH! Here’s a better idea, how about requesting the “media” we have, do some real investigative reporting on that so called school shooting in Fl. ? Because so far, all I’ve seen is …bullcrap!
Helsel has given a whole new definition to the saying “Dumb as a box of rocks”.
Hope those are not high capacity buckets, limit them to 10 rocks. And only trained and licensed rock throwers.
OMG, a 5 gallon bucket full of “Assault Rocks’!!!
I can only imagine the mayhem & bloodbath that would ensue if an untrained Rock-Thrower were to get their hands on those. 😨
So the brilliant “educator” finally admits that individuals should be “empowered to defend themselves,” but then he wants to mandate how they can do that….typical control-freak progressive
Is this where the term “Dumber than a box of rocks” comes from?There should be an award for this kind of academic brilliance, lets call it the, Box-o-rocks award for stupidity above and beyond. Lets not leave out celebrities that have given millions of dollars to protest groups, saving not a single life. CEO’s of big corporations,pulling products off the shelves. The hated NRA has had plans for school safety for years, they have the Eddie Eagle program but no, our Box-o-rocks award winners spent more on TG issues than school safety.
New gun owner policy for America if you don’t follow or Abide by Christian Angelo-saxon laws and/or rules based on ethics and moral behavior, you can’t own a gun to uphold those law or policies which was recognized when writing U.S. Constitution and judicial laws based on Hebrew commandments, by the early Christian Protestant, Puritans, Episcopalian and English Baptist settlers.