Democracy Dies in Darkness

This school district’s plan to stop shooters: Arming students with a bucket of rocks

March 24, 2018 at 12:51 p.m. EDT

One schools superintendent has a novel way to keep his students safe from school shooters: arming them with rocks.

David Helsel, superintendent of a school district in northeast Pennsylvania, explained his plan to a legislative education committee last week, drawing a flurry of local media coverage.

“Every classroom has been equipped with a five-gallon bucket of river stone,” Helsel explained about his Blue Mountain School District in Schuylkill County, northeast of Harrisburg, in a video broadcast by ABC affiliate 16 WNEP. “If an armed intruder attempts to gain entrance into any of our classrooms, they will face a classroom full of students armed with rocks, and they will be stoned.”