There is something seriously wrong with this country.

The other day, a tweet appeared in my timeline from Hannah Grieco. She's a writer, and in the tweet I saw, she wrote:

Just got a PR email asking me to write about these new classroom safety pods. I hate everybody.

I don't blame her. 

Can you imagine sending your little ones off each day to a classroom equipped with a safety pod? Or are you better off knowing your kiddos can sit out an active shooter situation in a safety pod, rather than cowering in a corner with their desks and chairs piled in front of them? Or hoping that they'll have the presence of mind of the quick-thinking and courageous little girl in Uvalde who survived because she thought to cover herself with her (murdered) best friend's blood and play dead. 

The safety pods were originally designed for tornado shelters, but that meant the market was limited to Tornado Alley (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri...). Fortunately for the fortunes of National Safety Shelters, which produces the safety pod, the market has expanded. Whether your school is ever going to find itself in the path of a tornado or not, there's always the possibility that there's a school shooter armed with an AR-15 lurking around the corner.

Dennis Corrado is National Safety Shelters' president wrote this to NPR:

 "After the Sandy Hook tragedy in December 2012, the shelter design was modified ... with the intent of offering them to schools as a dual-purpose safety measure to protect from tornadoes and active shooters." (Source: NPR)

So now there are two menu product choices on the National Safety Shelters website: Tornados and Active Shooters. 

The Active Shooter page is chocked full of good info: stats, lists, a map, and this bit: 

More people have died or been injured in mass school shootings in the US in the past 18 years than in the entire 20th century.

Now there's something to be proud of. 

The company must have a hard time keeping things updated. Too busy selling safety pods, which cost between $15K and $30K. That and making sure that the safety pods keep up with the challenges that Active Shooters present:

Corrado said the pods were modified "using NIJ ballistic Level III steel making them resistant to handguns, shotguns and semi-automatic high-caliber weapons including AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles."

Given that the weapon of choice for school shooters is the AR-15, it's a good thing that the safety pod can resist the bullets spewing out from them.

Alabama's Quitman School District is very enthused about the safety pods:

The district says on its Facebook page, "Quitman Schools is a proud partner of National Safety Shelters! Student safety is our top priority, and that is why every classroom on the Quitman campus is equipped with a military grade, ballistic steel shelter capable of withstanding an F5 Tornado."

Of course, the safety pod will only work if you can get your kids into them fast enough.

If the shooter picks your classroom as his Ground Zero, you may be out of luck. No way if the shooter barges in - maybe you don't have prison-level security doors installed - that the teacher can get the kiddos into the pod and secure it. And what about the kid who had to do a restroom run, only to get back to their classroom and find that everyone's already shut away, secured. You're on your own, kiddo! Duck and cover!

A couple of years back - I can't remember which school shooting it was after: Sandy Hook? Marjorie Stone Douglas? Oxford Michigan? Santa Fe (TX) High? - I remember reading about bulletproof backpacks for children. And I thought that the world was coming to an end.

Little did I know...

There is something seriously wrong with this country that we need to worry about whether our children are going to get blown away while at school. When the provision of school equipment like bullet proof kiddie backpacks and safety pods is a growth industry.