Cool tool or paranoid garbage?

I'll take paranoid garbage for $155, CT Reader!

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/the-cost-of-fearing-strangers/

"As we wrote in Freakonomics, most people are pretty terrible at risk assessment. They tend to overstate the risk of dramatic and unlikely events at the expense of more common and boring (if equally devastating) events."

Paranoid garbage.
Like the chief executive parachutes after 9/11.
This seems to me like a poorly thought ad. Hope i'm wrong
It needs a life to build a reputation, only few instants to lose it.

Sounds like it would be uncomfortable against your back.

A couple of textbooks should do nearly as well. And they come standard.

This is a spoof, right? Thank god guns are banned over here.

way to be completly paranoid. Maybe you should stop smokeing the wacky tobaccy.

How will posession of a ballistic panel decrease the chances of a hunting accident? It has no effect whatsoever on one's ability to safely handle firearms. An armor panel might mitigate the consequences of a firearm accident, but only within its capability. A Level IIIA panel is pretty much transparent to any hunting rifle bigger than a .22.

Wow, look at all the judgment here. I dunno, I would rather have one than not if I needed it. Seems extreme but then it is pretty freaky that school shootings happen so often. I just Googled "school shootings in america" and this site: http://www.schoolsecurity.org/trends/school_violence08-09.html shows that in the past five months there have been 4 school shootings already.
If I was a kid in that school I would want it or else I would want to move to the UK with the poster "glad to be british"

Paranoid garbage. It won't do anything to protect against a shot from the side or the front, it doesn't protect the head or the limbs, and it doesn't even cover the entire back.

Wow, "paranoid garbage" is the best description for this piece of idiocy. Exactly how many school shootings does this person thing actually happens in this country? The teen is far--*FAR*--more likely to get in a car accident on his way to or from school. In fact, I bet the statistics would bear out a far higher chance of that teen getting in an alcohol-related car accident himself.

Jeez Louise. I see NOTHING "cool" with this. It's pure garbage. It preys on the fears of people (didn't we just leave that behind yesterday with the inauguration of a new president?). Shame on you for falling for this clap trap.

Worst of all, the thing is dog-ugly. You think a teen is gonna wanna carry THAT thing to school?

NineLives -- 4 school shootings in 5 months? In the entire country? That is miniscule. Go find some stats on the number of car accidents instead. Let's get real.

Just thought I'd add one more thing.

I just went to the product's Web site. There's nothing there on the top that calls this a "threat level" anything. In HUGE graphic type, the name of the product is "BULLET BLOCKER" and right underneath it, you see a big red logo that says "AS SEEN ON TV."

Talk about exploitative trash. I think the only thing this prevents is keeping kids injury-free from people throwing Magic Bullet battery-operated blenders at them. Those are also "as seen on TV"!

This has to be the all time dumbest item you've ever featured. For crying out loud, you'd be better off wearing a helmet while walking down the street, when you consider the liklihood of getting hit by a car while walking versus being in a school shooting.

Complete paranoid stupidity. I can think of thousands of things that would make your children safer for $150. Is rational thinking dead because someone once committed a violent crime somewhere?

Well, I raced over here to comment, but it's all been said.

So sad.

I agree that it most likely won't do much to protect you, but considering all the "manly men" like Dick Cheney who have taken up hunting, you might want to consider a Kevlar suit when you go hunting.

"I've found the increased number of school shootings and violence so disturbing"?

http://youthviolence.edschool.virginia.edu/violence-in-schools/school-shootings.html

- School shootings have DECLINED 50% from 10 years ago.
- The homicide risk for kids OUTSIDE of school is 226 times greater than IN SCHOOL.
- Kids are 15 times more likely to die from flu than school homicide.

So from an empirical perspective your kid is VASTLY safer if you spent the money stockpiling tamilflu instead of the bulletproof backpack.

Agree with nearly everyone else. This is complete garbage. This is a great blog, and I guess they miss sometimes.

Too funny. I wouldn't buy it but apparently there is a market for it as I took the time to review their website and the interviews of them show they aren't freaks.
As far as the comments above about the stats, that is typical. Same sort of rants against owning a gun to protect yourself. If someone wants to spend the $150 for a vest then go for it.
When I was a kid we never wore bike helmets or knee pads etc but you would be hard pressed to find anyone not wearing a bicycle helmet these days. We are a consumer country of fear. This product is no different than scads of others (even in these "cool tools") that are based partly on facts but driven from fear.

Contrarian post here- I like it...pretty cool.Did anyone see the YouTube video on the site. What makes the tool cool to me is that this thin, cloth like material stopped that many rounds. Forget the morality, need or greed, it is cool that a non-kevlar material can do that. What the heck is it?

it may protect you if your a burglar, giving americans pension for shooting retreating unarmed burglers in the back.

Security guru Bruce Schneier has written about the dubious merits of such products:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/11/bulletproof_tex.html

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/08/bulletproof_bac.html

Wow, I actually like the idea. At my children s school they are are proposing a "fight back" policy. They want my kids, in a last ditch effort" to hurl books, bags, bottles of paste at a gunman if there is no other option. Well, I think if my kid is in the classroom while they are throwing Elmer's bottles at a gunman, she at least will be able to put the backpack in front of her, while your kids are doing the ninja moves. Actual, that's a better idea, don't give your kids anything and they can be the bullet magnets while mine wait in the back of the room. Sorry for being a bit level headed. I like the idea. Until they can eliminate school shootings....

And what happens when said child spills drinks, leaves it in the car in 120 degree heat, steps on it, and most importantly an automatic pencil stabs it,etc. I don't think kids are going to take the proper care for their equipment

Unless it stops 5.56x45 or 7.62.39 its not that helpful, but thats why I was trained to hit COM, just make sure COM is the head ;-)

Just a quick factoid, from FBI statistics: odds of dying by homicide are approximately .006%. I imagine school shootings account for a small minority of these -- if we generously assume 10%, then your kid's odds of dying by school shooting are something like 0.0006%. I feel reasonably certain -- like everyone else posting -- that spending the $155 on, say, higher-quality groceries for a few months would be a much more effective use of the money in terms of maximizing your child's life expectancy. Or how about $155 worth of mediation training? (stats from http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html )

Quick update: approximately 2481000 people die in the US per year (CIA Factbook). The article cited above by NineLives suggests that perhaps ten people will die by being shot or stabbed at school. That puts your kid's chances of death by school shooting/stabbing (per year) at roughly .00000004%. I'd say that fits into slim to none, and Slim's just left town ;)

I'm just surprised that this one made it onto Cool Tools, which is generally so excellent.

It does offer the possibility for an interesting discussion, though: given a budget of $x per year, how do you spend it to maximize your child's life expectancy? Obviously your yearly budgetary priorities will change as your child's age changes. Fun to think about.

"Wow, I actually like the idea. At my children s school they are are proposing a "fight back" policy. They want my kids, in a last ditch effort" to hurl books, bags, bottles of paste at a gunman if there is no other option"

Not only is your school engageing in ridicilous fear mongering, they are offering absurd advice. The only offensive option that would stand any chance of success is if multiple people were to rush the gunman and wrestle them to the ground. The way people typically behave in a paniced and chaotic situation, they will probably hide behind whatever cover is avaible, try to run or play dead. It takes a lot of training to equip a soldier or police officer to keep a semblence of calm in a situation like this, let alone a child.

While y ou are entertaining your paranoid delusions, your children are being indoctrinated with fear and paranoia. Have you considered what kind of emotional distress this could cause your children? I went through school in the heigh of the columbine school shooting paranoia, and ill tell you any kind of misfit in the social heiarchy of the school suffered greatly from the gossip, paranoia, and jokes that prevailed at this time. Also far more kids are injured or killed in other forms of school violence then spree shootings. Perhaps you should spend your money on putting your kids through self defense courses. And spending time with them makeing sure they don't get involved in gang shenigans.

I have subscribed to this blog for quite some time but have never commented before.

What an astonishingly inane product and recommendation.

First, the efficacy of a bulletproof shield that protects only one's back should be apparent.

Second, the chances of a child being involved in a school shooting is vanishingly small.

Third, the vast majority of serious hunting accidents are either self inflicted or inflicted at close range by friends who mishandle firearms. At such close range (and setting aside again the fact that this only protects part of one's back) this product would provide no real protection.

As for your child: the fear and emotional distress you inflict on your child by imposing your paranoia on him or her will surely shorten his or her life far more than the tiny amount of risk presented by school shootings. Seriously.

Better, a stungun and handheld Kevlar shield. Better because one could be imprinted with the Nike Swoosh or school emblem to make it a must have accessory for the fearless teenage hero.

The point is people have the choice to purchase or not. The point is ONE shooting is important enough for that kid/parent. The point is that kids that learn Karate/Judo boxing often do so because of a threat/feeling of being vunerable. It doesn't make them manic folks, it provides security while your kid is panicked. Good choice Parent. Way to go.

This IS A COOL TOOL simply because it is different, offers a niche product to people like us visiting cool tools.

Did you take a look at the inventory of the existing "cool tools" folks? Many of these tools are simply niche tools and in fact most of us don't have use for many of them. Right??! Do you own even 5% of these tools. Doubt it. A personal sander/salter is not on my wish list for a tool to keep my driveway safe. talk about a waste of money...$150 bucks to drag a bucket of sand/salt on your driveway? Gimme a break.

Use the word GUN and bulletproof and all the zombies with their stats (with the stupid link to substantiate it?) I bet all of the negative comments above would also comment the same way if kk.org featured a particular gun as a cool tool.

The point is that like anything involving PERSONAL CHOICE there are so many personal opinions. And you know what they say about opinions, we all have one.

This one is mine.

And by the way, from the looks of the many tools with NO COMMENTS or limited comments I think this tool created the most reaction of them all. Maybe KK isn't such a bad reviewer after all.

Think about it. If you can.

Long Time Cool Tools Subscriber--First Time Poster.

That backpack won't save the kid from getting beaten up for wearing his hat that way.

I'll admit this is going to sounds like a total a-h thing to say but, if you buy one of these you are better off tying it to your child's head to prevent a self inflicted gunshot. Statistically speaking your kid is about 5 times more likely to commit suicide than die in a school shooting.

I'm sitting here looking at the brochure "Community Survival Strategies for an Active Shooter" as published and distributed by the UC Davis Police Department, which I got when I attended one of their "active shooter" training sessions (well worth attending if you have the chance).

Under the heading "Strategies for Survival" they list the following (all typography is as it appears in the brochure):

1) Get Out! ESCAPE
2) Take Cover (get behind something that will stop a bullet, look for chances to ESCAPE)
3) Hide (look for a chance to ESCAPE)
4) Play Dead (look for a chance to ESCAPE)
5) Attack the Attacker (LAST RESORT)

So yeah, they do teach people to throw things at the shooter – but only as a matter of LAST RESORT if you aren't able to escape, take cover, hide, or play dead.

"The point is that like anything involving PERSONAL CHOICE there are so many personal opinions. And you know what they say about opinions, we all have one."

True enough. But if somebody posted a cool tool which consisted of a titanium meteor shield to be installed on the roof of one's car, it would be fair, would it not, to question the probability of one's car being struck by a meteor and whether it justified the cost?

So, yes, opinions are opinions. But rational analysis of risk isn't just a matter of opinion.

Bulletproof polycarb is about $66/sq foot and you can probably make a decent clipboard out of it. At least then, you might be getting something for the money. Even at that, a shooter isn't going to shoot your bookbag.

#34 had it right: rational analysis of risk isn't just a matter of opinion.

-C

Bullet Proof? How about Bullet Resistant? Nothing is 100%.

As for the back pack, soft body armor needs to be snug against the body to work effectively. A ballistic panel flopping from one strap on your back (Like in the picture)may work, but it is likely to fail. If you have any doubt, read up on the FBI Miami shoot out from 1986. At least one of the agents tried to protect himself by holding up body armor that he should have been wearing. The vest failed because it had no where to dissipate the bullet's energy.

100% agree this is total fearmongering, and pretty much totally useless. The cost per life saved is probably in the billions; much better ways to spend the money.

BTW, IIRC the "throw stuff at the attacker and mob" tactic is mostly useful when some maniac bursts into a classroom. You can't run, you can't hide, and playing dead isn't going to work, plus you likely have handy objects to throw. You have to be pretty well trained to ignore a lot of incoming projectiles.

Rather than waste money on a dubious product like this, better to get your kids started on martial arts training with a good sensei (the older, the better). If nothing else, the training will help them keep their wits about them when the fecal matter hits the rotary impeller.

While I agree that this would not be the best way to protect my kid, especially since I don't have one, the cool thing about Cool Tools is that they stimulate one's imagination. Even if the suggested use of this tool is impractical, you might see a very sensible use for something similar.

I don't run out and buy ever item written about here but I enjoy seeing them, just like I enjoy a James Bond ® film with all its entertaining gadgets.

Cool blog!

My take is that, while I could've done without the paranoid sales pitch--because it is just a sales pitch, since there's no experience with the tool described--it's nice to know that it exists and is available, should I ever decide I need such a thing. (My use of the word paranoid, here, refers to the apparent upswing in school violence when it has decreased and "hearing about more and more hunting accidents, rather than the perfectly rational fear of becoming injured.)

I think it's a waste of money for someone who wants to protect their child from a hypothetical school shooting that probably won't happen and probably won't hurt any specific kid if it does, but might not be such a terrible idea for, say, a journalist covering a drive-by shooting in a dangerous neighborhood. Maybe.

Wow! I have been checking out cool tools for so long and this is the first time I am totally unimpressed by the company I keep amongst the other tool readers. At the same time I am encouraged by the responses that make me feel as though Darwinism is alive and well. The fact that so many of these comments reflects the idea that it hasn't occurred to many of the readers that the backpack with an internal shield should be removed from the back and used to protect the user from the direction of an attack is amazing. I always believed that I was part of an intelligent cohort of readers and that is obviously not so clear now.
It is also amazing how offended people seem to be by the idea of a passive defense product being offered to a willing and able consumer. I imagine that many of these writers are not attending a public school or university where there is an awareness of these risks and systemic responses have universally been put in place for "lock downs" and school wide cellphone alert systems are part of every day life.
I think it is also safe to say that these vehement protesters do not have children in schools that are already instilling "paranoia" by addressing these risks as very real and worth practicing procedures to protect against.
Most evident is the impression that none of these writers had a connection with someone that has been in a school when a gun incident has occurred. I took a look at the offending product website and they not only make it clear that all their products have been independently tested to threat level 3a (but, as 1 writer noted, they do not put that in their logo at the head of the page, so it must not be true) they also define bullet proof. They point out that it is a commonly known descriptive term but that no products are bullet proof and that bullet resistant to a tested threat level is the correct description of the protection offered. They also maintain a blog and like so many blogs today it was full of sales hype, but in between the ads they list incident after incident after incident across the country, along with the independent news sources that wrote the stories. It's obvious from the volume of incidents and near misses that we, the public, can not trust the FBI and School resources with their self-serving, pat on the back, stats on how safe they make our world. Fortunately Tuesday marked the start of a new world order where all Americans can lay safely asleep at night knowing that Obama will be protecting their children in the schools by removing the angst of immaturity and youth and that civil unrest is now a thing of the past and we have averted another Great Depression and can now turn in all our guns for a tax credit because we no longer need the 2nd amendment.
But I digress: Opinions are like a-holes. Everyone has one and everyone talks about it if it's sore.

StupidPeople wrote: "The point is that kids that learn Karate/Judo boxing often do so because of a threat/feeling of being vunerable."

Karate and judo certainly help boost self-confidence, but it does a heck of a lot of other things, too. It teaches discipline, coordination, balance, awareness, physical fitness, and much more. It's a great investment for a child, and it may even help in an emergency situation since the child will be trained to be more aware of their surroundings and be quicker on their feet.

Mark Miwords wrote: "It's obvious from the volume of incidents and near misses that we, the public, can not trust the FBI and School resources with their self-serving, pat on the back, stats on how safe they make our world."

I don't think anyone is arguing that gun violence doesn't happen. And you know, you shouldn't discount people's opinions because a tragedy didn't happen to them at a personal level. You are implying that someone who didn't have a close family relative get murdered or raped can somehow not have a valid opinion.

It's easy to become paranoid by reading case after case after case.... but if there were say 20 incidents a year in the country, it may sound like a lot until you realize there are hundreds of thousands of schools and tens of millions of students in our country...

For most people, the issue is that this product smells very exploitative of people's fears and paranoia, and they are charging $150. I think if the item were only $10 as a public service, people would people say it's pretty silly but you may as well, for only ten bucks. But in this day and age in our economy, $150 is a lot of money and for most people, it's insurance for an incident that will statistically be very unlikely to happen. Let's put it this way: How many school gun incidents happen in a year? How many of them will happen in your child's school? In your child's presence? In a place where your child is actually wearing/carrying the backpack? Where the shooter chooses to aim at your child? And that amount of square inches of the panel are sufficient to hold back the impact of a bullet?

Do you buy lottery tickets? Your odds of winning are probably higher.

THAT is what people are calling shenanigans on. Not that violence doesn't happen, etc. Be smart. Not irrationally paranoid.

This is easily the worst tool I've ever seen posted on Cool Tools. I don't see how it could possibly serve its supposed function. Maybe it can stop a bullet, but you can't take off your backpack and use it as a shield against gunfire. It isn't big enough and bullets are too fast. In almost any situation, you would do far better to just run away than struggling with a backpack loaded with heavy textbooks. That's just my speculative opinion, but the reviewer and the company selling it are being just as imaginative.

The simple point is this: every other tool on the site has actually been used by the reviewer. This one hasn't, unless you assume that the actually purpose of the product is not to stop bullets, but to make people feel better by providing an illusion of safety.

The top of the site says "Cool Tools really work." Not "might work."

This is a not a cool tool. I love Cool Tools and rarely find reason to be disappointed but I am severely disappointed with this item. Violent assaults involving firearms are more common outside of schools in the world at large than inside of our educational institutions, so YOU need it getting to work in the morning more than your son needs it in the classroom. Paranoid garbage gets my vote.

@ all. From the editors: I have deleted a few recent comments in this discussion because they denigrated specific people. Disagreements are welcomed. Responses to specific comments are fine and useful. Name-calling and personal insults are not welcomed, and will deleted. It is entirely possible and reasonable to disagree with civility. Even politeness, although I don't insist on that. Otherwise this is a good discussion. Carry on.

If your post has been deleted for personal attacks you are welcome to repost it amended.

Half the responses have very flawed logic and some are just flat out ridiculous.
For example, body armor has to be worn snug to the body - watch the video on the site, it's hanging free and works great. Another mentioned a FBI shooting, unfortunately, if your talking about the Miami Dade bank robber shooting, no vest was held up, you are just making things up (I have a copy of the training video if you would like to see it) . Another states that you would be better of having these on the way to work.... sure, why not, who says this is ONLY for schools. Another mentions a .000004% chance of a school shooting... why would EVERY school practice lockdown drills for a gunman. Another mentions the usefulness of ballistic material.. why does every law enforcement officer where one if they where useless? In my town there has NEVER been a police officer shot, NEVER in the 265 years the town has been in existence, yet every officer MUST wear one, that's a 0% chance of being shot. I could go on and on, but I won't.
People, it would be nice for you to think before you spout off garbage.
Having a piece of safety equipment makes sense to me.

My town - 265 years old
# of Police officers shot = 0 (zero)
# of students shot = 1 (one with a bb gun, but still shot)

Money spent on the 54 police officers vests, guns, training, etc = who knows lots I'm sure.
Money spent on school kids defensive equipment = $0.00

Logic states that a school kid is 100% more likely to be shot that my towns police officers.

No, bad statistics state that a school kid is 100% more likely to be shot. You have one ridiculous data point. The point of using DoJ Uniform Crime Stats is that they can show a trend across 300 million people, i.e. a statistically significant sample size.

Police officers having safety equipment is one thing: they come in contact with people carrying weapons as part of their job. Unless your school is located in Quantico, I doubt a schoolkid has the same potential for havoc.

-C

I can try this again a different way,

In MY town, according to empirical data, statistically, it is more likely that a school child will be shot than a police officer.

I'm not talking about Quantico.

My town;
police - 0
school kid - 1

Get your child a Glock 17 instead.

Much more useful.

One other point. Even presuming that the shield is needed (a bad presumption) and that is is between the firearm's muzzle and the child's vital parts, the firearm must be a pistol or shotgun. If it is a rifle, the bullet Level IIIA armor will provide essentially no protection.

Parents who REALLY love their children will give them ceramic trauma plates for their backpacks.

Tracy: was the kid shot in your town shot through his backpack?

Forty-one officers were shot and killed in 2008 - usa today
969,070 full time sworn law enforcement officers US 2005 FBI
0.004% = 1 out of every 25,000 police officers

47 students killed in 2007 - US News world report
88,000,000 total students (elementary through graduate school) 2003 (highest on record - US census
.00005% = 1 out of every 1,600,000 students

odds to win the lottery (6/49 numbers)
0.000007151% = 1 out of every 13,983,816 chances

not odds I like to mess with - (I don't play the lottery though)

gotta love the internet

Agree with the majority of posters here that this is a pretty stupid post. I'm a longtime reader of KK, and this one really detracts from the quality of your posts.

BTW, one comment suggested that it would be better to stockpile tamiflu. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the majority of flu strains seen this season are completely resistant to tamiflu!

Concerns are everywhere in regards to school violence. It is sad that other have made such poor decisions on school campus that parents have to make the choice of how do I best protect my child. What else can we do to increase the safety on our school campuses?

The family is a critical component to any child’s life. When it comes to education, no greater statistic stands truer today than the achievement gap between students whose parents are involved in their education process and those who do not have that support. Personal responsibility, safety and education are key elements to bringing up the next generation.

After 10 years of experience leading a volunteer program in my children’s elementary and middle schools, Schools And Families Engaged (the S.A.F.E. TEAM on Campus) was launched in 2008 to meet the needs of schools and families. Many of the school's families do not know where to begin in school. Many parents today never had an example of their parents supporting the school let alone they may not have enjoyed their personal schooling experience. Why would they have a desire to serve? You only know what you have experienced.

Make time to check out our site www.thesafeteam.com . On the About SAFE page, click on the 40 Developmental Assets link. This will tie in all the benefits of families and communities supporting their students both in school and out of school.

The above SafeTeam from above seems to go hand in hand with the safety product idea. Looks like the professionals agree that schools are not that safe. They seem to be a philosophical company and the BulletBlockers are a physical safety company. Their site is quite interesting.

"Looks like the professionals agree that schools are not that safe."

Well, the sales people certainly agree on that point, if that's who you mean by "professionals." We do not, however, appear to have heard from *experts,* by which I mean people who have deep familiarity with the relevant quantitative data, and (ideally) do not make their living by selling something (in this case, something almost certain to be useless), with the sale based on exaggerated safety concerns.

47 students killed in 2007 - US News world report
88,000,000 total students (elementary through graduate school) 2003 (highest on record - US census
.00005% = 1 out of every 1,600,000 students chance of getting killed

George, what's your comment on this statistic???

1. Compare to auto (and other) accident, suicide, cancer, and infectious disease death rates. All are worse.

2. Compare to probability of death due to lightning strike.

3. Compare to rates in your community AND peer communities. Are you in a desolated section of urban Baltimore or pastoral Vermont?

4. Ask yourself, realistically, whether having a piece of bullet-proof composite in a backpack would lower a child's ACTUAL risk of death in a shooting by any meaningful amount. (Again, remember that rifle bullets will slice through level IIIA armor like a knife through warm butter).

5. Ask yourself whether any such marginal (effectively nonexistent) reduction in risk is worth raising a paranoid, terrified child who (like his parents, apparently) is *constantly* concerned about terrible things that almost certainly will not happen, and who will be reminded of these illusory hazards every time he reaches into his backpack. Recipe for mental illness, anyone?

Life is full of risks. Some are realistic, some are not. If you waste your days worrying about these unrealistic risks and transmitting this irrational fear to your kids, you're destroying the ability to reason, shortening a fully-lived life, and destroying your child's precious childhood.

Every school does lock down drills, every school. The school is telling the kids that they need to do do a certain thing if a man with a gun enters their school. I can't make this more clear. The schools, every school, is teaching the children that a "man with a gun" is a possibility. Now, knowing that EVERY SCHOOL does LOCK DOWN DRILLS - is it scaring your child more by giving them some piece of protection in case there is a lock down at their school (which every school does)?

How about a fire drill - the school is telling the kids they may catch fire and you have to "stop drop and roll because you are on fire" - scary, maybe we shouldn't tell the kids about fire, because they are more likely to get shot than die in a fire.

Maybe we shouldn't tell them to stay away from trees during a lightning storm, because the chance of getting zapped by lightning is so rare.

Maybe we shouldn't tell little Johnny to wear his bicycle helmet because he may be traumatized thinking about smashing his head in.

Let's use our heads here George, kids are initiated into the scary world very early in life, and we as parents need to give the kids the needed equipment to keep themselves safe; bicycle helmet, smoke detectors, fire drills, lockdown drills etc.

Sticking your head in the sand and pretending there is nothing dangerous out there is unrealistic and just bad parenting.

they have lock down procedures because they are pressured by the alarmist paranoid PTA pressures them to do so.

I have deleted the last two comments here because personal insults and incivility won' be tolerated. Talk about the merits (or lack of) for the tool under discussion is welcomed

"Sticking your head in the sand and pretending there is nothing dangerous out there is unrealistic and just bad parenting."

This is a mischaracterization. No one on this thread has taken such a preposterous position. What many of us have said is that one should not react to implausible threats with absurdly questionable "countermeasurres" such as the item featured in the parent post.

"Every school does lock down drills, every school.... EVERY SCHOOL does LOCK DOWN DRILLS... in case there is a lock down at their school (which every school does)..."

Every school does not do lockdown drills. These assertions are counterfactual.

"Maybe we shouldn't tell little Johnny to wear his bicycle helmet because he may be traumatized thinking about smashing his head in."

Apple? Meet Orange. There is a lot of quantitative data in the peer-reviewed literature supporting the notion that bicycle helmets protect children against head injury*. There is no quantitative data -- there is not even a single anecdotal case -- showing that putting a small $155 composite panel in a child's backpack (or for that matter, practicing lockdown drills) has any effect on child safety whatsoever.

*Interestingly, while the evidence that bicycle helmets protect kids is reasonably good, the evidence that bicycle helmets protect adults is astonishingly weak and contradictory. I suspect that this is because adults (1) ride faster; and (2) are taller, and thus theier heads have much further to fall. Note that *real* helmets -- full-face motorcycle helmets -- are unquestionably protective, just as *real* armor -- flak jackets with ceramic trauma plates -- has been in our wars in the Middle East.

Real protection is not the same as the appearance of protection. Even good gear won't protect you from bad judgement. All the gear in the world won't protect you against the wrong threat. And focusing on the wrong threat is at best life-sucking, and at worst a distraction that will prevent you from seeing the thing that will actually get you. That's neither cool, nor a tool.

Home school.

There is plenty of data showing bullet resistant materials stop bullets. That's what this site is great for, new products reviewed. The fact that this particular product has not historicly relevant data is due to the fact that it is a new product, or at least a new concept of proposed use, so no empirical data.

Simple question. If a gun is introduced into your child's school, would you want your child to have a piece of bullet resistant material, in this case, a panel?

As stated earlier, there is a 1 in 1,400,000 chance of being shot in school, are those odds that you are comfortable with? I'm not.

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that the aforementioned panel (manufactured from the purest high-tech snake oil composite) decreases a child's likelihood of death by shooting by 33%.

This is a preposterously generous estimate.

It presumes that the kid has the pack at hand at the right moment, that the panel is deployed, that the bullet hits the panel and not the child, that the shooter is not using a rifle, that the weight of the textbook-and-laptop-filled backpack (or the time taken to put it on) does not result in a fatal delay in the child's departure from the scene, that the specific panel in this child's pack does not suffer from QC problems, that the child is not himself the shooter (this is a common way in which children are shot), etc., etc.

But let's play the game. Let's assume, solely for the sake of argument, that these ridiculously generous assumptions are true, the odds really do change from one in 1.4 M to one in ~2 M. If they are not true -- and they probably are not true -- the improvement in odds is less. In either case, we're talking about the difference between something that is not damned likely, and something that is not damned likely.

If you are really concerned about your kid's safety after all this? He needs to dress for school in the same way that these guys dressed for work.

By the way: would you care, Tracy, to attest that you do not gain financially from the sale of these or similar products?

"These guys" in the previous post refers to these guys:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

what happens if a kid planning on shooting up his school wears this backpack to load up all his ammunition front and back, then your children are more at risk because the police trained to shoot for center body mass may hit the panel, giving the child more time to fire off more rounds throughout the school.

George, let me say, I don't work for this company, but I would like to buy stock in it, I see a big future that company. It's a niche market that has big potential.

Bulletproof vests are readily available at Army Navy Surplus stores, local gun shows, all over the internet, search on Ebay and see they are selling hundreds of them very cheaply (much, much cheaper than this company). If a bad element is going to get bulletproof material, they're not going to spend the money on these, when they can get vests cheaper and cut them apart. They don't care about testing, labeling or concealibility.

If someone has the intent of doing bad things, should we take things away?
For example, legaly owned guns don't murder/rob people, do we take away ALL guns because some are used for bad?
People speed in cars (break the law), do we take away cars because some people may speed?
Kids spray paint on buildings (graffiti), do we make spray paint illegal because of the bad element?
The saying "throwing the baby out with the bath wqter" comes to mind.

the vast majority of school shootings are carried out with legal guns aquired from home, friends or family. So the "bad element" are kids using whatever they can steal from home or family. Although some kids have prepared quite well such as the two involved in the columbine shooting, most don't, so the availibility of bullet proof backpacks provided by parents I consider a real likely hood of being utilized in school shootings.

I saw the alarmist comment worried about the 4 school-related shootings in the past five months. I checked it out and two were of non-students. The Wikipedia page on Education in the United States indicates that there are 76.1 million students in the USA currently. Therefore, the chances of a student being shot in the past five months are 1 in 38.05 million. To compare to other incidents against which you could protect yourself, you are at least 50 times more likely to be struck by lightning. I could only find a generic figure for that, not specific to students. Maybe it's time to break out the North American tiger repellent!

Tracy @68: "For example, legaly owned guns don't murder/rob people, do we take away ALL guns because some are used for bad?"

I don't think that anyone on this entire thread suggested that guns, bulletproof panels, or anything else should be"taken away." I certainly made no such suggestion.

I did suggest that it is worthwhile to evaluate whether threats are significant, and whether responses are efficient and effective, or merely stupid. I did suggest that the backpack panel is stupidly inefficient (because it is relatively expensive and highly unlikely to ever be used) and stupidly ineffective (because it is highly unlikely to be in the right place at the right time, i.e., in between a shooter and a shootee).

I have no beef with people who want to purchase stupid things (people do this all the time); but they should have no beef with me (and most others on this thread) pointing out that the aforementioned things are stupid.

Tracy's misapprehension of what I and others were writing illustrates, once again, the importance of rationally evaluating the world as it is, not the world as one imagines or fears it to be. zorg's post @70 nicely highlights the silliness at work here.

Tracy @68: "Kids spray paint on buildings (graffiti), do we make spray paint illegal because of the bad element?"

In many jurisdictions, sales of spray paint to minors, and posession of spray paint by minors, violates local laws and/or regulations.

So, um, the answer to your question is yes. We (we being the government of, by and for the People) do in fact make spray paint illegal because of the bad element. What this has to do with an argument about the utility of a bullet-resistant panel, I can't begin to imagine.

Well George, if you read the previous posts, the implication was that "bad guys" would use the panel when they do the shooting. Hence the implication - shouldn't sell these because the "bad guys" MAY use them.

I will ask the question again, if there is limited (stupidly ineffective) use in ballistic material, why does EVERY police officer use them? The capitalized word is to emphasize every. Please don't cloud the water with situational probability, we have already squashed that argument.

"Hence the implication - shouldn't sell these because the "bad guys" MAY use them."

No one implied that they shouldn't be sold.

"I will ask the question again, if there is limited (stupidly ineffective) use in ballistic material, why does EVERY police officer use them?"

I did not say that ballistic material in general is stupidly ineffective. I said that a ballistic panel for a student's backpack is stupidly ineffective, and I explained why this is the case. I do not appreciate it when my words are inaccurately paraphrased, Tracy. It makes me suspect that you are not interested in an honest argument.

As to police officers: (1) they routinely deal with people who deploy hostile lethal force as part of their daily work; (2) they do not carry a ballistic panel in a backpack - they wrap their entire torsos in the stuff.

"Please don't cloud the water with situational probability, we have already squashed that argument."

Setting asidethe fact that "situational probability" is a nearly meaningless term, I don't do fact-free, I don't engage in qualitative arguments when quantitative ones are more powerful (I do make my living as a scientist, after all), and I do not cede to Tracy (or anyone else) the right to dictate the terms of my arguments. Capiche?

molto bene, mi capisco.
ok Mr. Scientist,
fact = more school children have been shot in my town than police officers.
conclusion = a school aged child has more of a probability than an officer of the law of getting shot.
Please use your scientific method and explain how it is an untrue statement.

"conclusion = a school aged child has more of a probability than an officer of the law of getting shot."

An interesting conclusion. But conclusions generally follow from evidence, and no one on this thread, you included, has provided evidence that might plausibly support that conclusion. Some statistics were provided on shooting deaths, but none on shootings. They're not the same thing, since most people who are shot, survive (e.g., Harry Whittington).

Even the statistics on shooting deaths do not support your claim: your own numbers (post #52) show that a cop is on average at least 64 times more likely to be killed than a student.

Of course, more than 1,000 cops are nonlethally assaulted for each one killed in the line of duty (FBI, 2007). And again, they wear vests; they don't leave a panel in a backpack.*

*I now notice that the single student "shot" in your town was "shot" with a BB gun. Sorry, but that does not cut it; if protection against BB guns is your concern, have the kid put a copy of Sports Illustrated under his shirt. That will protect as well as the panel at 1/50th the cost, and at least has the secondary utility of relieving boredom in a town where, apparently, nothing genuinely frightening has ever actually happened. Or you could get him a subscription to Science.

http://www.sciencemag.org/

A 2 year student subscription is $150: five bucks cheaper than the panel (and if he gets a few issues and some duct tape, can cover his whole torso), protects well against BB's, and he'll actually learn a thing or two about how to evaluate data. Win-win, I'd say. Spend the remaining five bucks on a pair of safety glasses, and the errant BB might not even take our one of his eyeballs.

Who is more likely (probability) to be shot in my town (using scientific method)?
That's the question contained in my post.
Why cloud the issue, not very scientific.
That was the earlier statement I had questioned. We can debate the rest, but let's do 1 at a time, if that's ok with you.

Rediscovered through William Gibson's blog: The Mall Ninja.

http://lonelymachines.org/mall-ninjas/

Consider the number of people who drown per year (about 7,000) and that life preservers are mandatory on boats, lifeguards for public pools. Consider car accident fatalities and requirements on seat belts and air bags. In the United States, with the number of guns available, amount of drugs being used, and people just going off their rockers, it's nice to have something to protect yourself. You may not be aware of and be able to respond to the first shot that's fired, but you've got something for the second. Yeah, it is pretty sad that dealing with life in the United States requires less than conventional measures. Just look around.

Jeez......$155.00 !!........For that price you could get the Carbon/Kevlar ultra Comet/Astroid/Meteor Helmet.......and have enough left over for the Noah Tsunami Snorkel........money much more wisely spent !!........What the hell has happened to this site??........Be afraid, be very afraid........J

Jeez......$155.00 !!........For that price you could get the Carbon/Kevlar ultra Comet/Astroid/Meteor Helmet.......and have enough left over for the Noah Tsunami Snorkel........money much more wisely spent !!........What the hell has happened to this site??........Be afraid, be very afraid........J

I come to kk to see new things. I am thinking of going somewhere where there are bullets flying more than in the US. This seems an idea worth thinking about in some situations.

I don't understand the physics but it seems that if you had something like this and you knew that an attack was more probable than the cost of buying and carrying this would burden you it may be a reasonable idea. If ever one of these saves someones life the market will explode.

I like the fight back idea and the conflict resolution training idea. Unfortunately I cant throw for a darn so I'm probably toast.