The real reason schools are taking these precautions: It's all Tom Ridge, you know. Yes it is. He is the Bush Administration's official in charge of "homeland security". Now, think about this. Who makes a better republican? Someone who feels safe and prosperous and secure? Or someone who believes that enemies are out there on all sides, just waiting for an opportunity to whack us? Of course! Ridge is out to create an entire new generation of republicans, of fearful paranoids ready to grant their government any powers at all to save us from "evil" people out there who are jealous of tax-free dividends and gas-guzzling SUVs!
Think about this: the last time our society immersed itself into a culture of paranoia and fear was the 1950's. Remember all the bomb shelters and McCarthyism? Right. Ten years later, we had the greatest uprising of youthful dissidence in the history of this country. Interesting to think about.
Schools across the United States, in response to the entreaties of Homeland Security Fuehrer Ridge, are implementing emergency procedures to be used in case of... an emergency.
What emergency? In the letters sent home to parents, they don't often say. They say things like "in light of increased concerns for community safety".
So what, exactly, do they think is going to happen. The plans include evacuating the students to the gymnasium and ensuring that there is an "adequate" supply of food and water. For what? How can you prepare for an emergency when you are not prepared to seriously discuss exactly what kind of emergency you will be facing?
So it's up to us sober-minded observers to speculate. Let's consider some possibilities.
1. Foreign terrorists crash an airplane into the school. Not all that likely, you have to think. Why this particular school and not one of 8,000 others in the vicinity, say, of Chicago or New York? Is it realistic to prepare every school for an airplane crashing into it? How will the terrorists find your school in particular? Schools don't stand out like World Trade Centres and Pentagons. And do you honestly think that even a terrorist wants to target children? There's a reason why they chose the World Trade Centre--- adults screwing other adults. So let's leave that one aside for now.
2. Nuclear Bomb: They haven't found any in Iraq yet. What a disappointment that must be to the Bush Administration. But if they did find one and they found that Iraq, or Al Quaeda, or somebody, had the means of delivering the bomb to New York, the gym would not be adequate protection, and all that duct tape and plastic won't keep the radiation out. And even if it could, all the parents, in their unprotected workplaces, would be dead. Let's not talk about that one either.
3. Chemical, Radioactive, or Biological Weapons Attack: according to some very smart people, the only biological weapon that could possibly pose a serious threat to large numbers of people is smallpox. Anthrax just doesn't travel very well (how come you never hear about it any more) and most other biological agents can't be delivered over a large area very effectively. Only the U.S. and Russia have any stores of smallpox, and as far as we know, they haven't been selling them off to tin-pot dictators like they did chemical weapons, so smallpox is probably not a big concern.
There are the nerve agents, chlorine, and other chemical weapons. So I suppose these schools are concerned about somebody attacking the school with chemical agents. How? Dropped from a plane or launched from a mortar or rocket-launcher, you have to suppose. How would these villains get close enough to the school to launch such an attack? They could smuggle the compounds and the delivery technologies into the U.S., maybe through Mexico or Canada, and then drive to your town and position themselves near your school and, bingo! Or they could get into many, many small planes and drop the agents over the school yard during recess.
Then all the students rush into the gymnasium and the teachers duct-tape the doors and cover them with plastic.
Be honest. You can just see that happening, can't you?
Part of being a rational, sane person is the ability to judge risk accurately and effectively. There are many bad things that could happen to your child at school. He could be bullied. He could be molested. She could fall and hurt herself. The school could be hit by a tornado or hurricane. There could be a fire or an earthquake. Or some lunatic with easy access to semi-automatic weapons could walk in the front door, shoot the security guard, and kill dozens of students and teachers.
In the history of the U.S., not a single a school has ever been attacked by a terrorist.
Do you feel safer now?