University Students Using Hockey Pucks To Protect Against Active Shooters

hockey pucks being given to staff at Oakland University

Preparing for an active shooter is fact of life for many students these days, and one university in Rochester, Michigan has begun promoting a unique idea that will also help them to raise money to better secure their school. 

To better prepare for an active shooter, faculty and students at Oakland University in Michigan have begun arming themselves with hockey pucks to help deter a gunman if they enter their classroom. 

The quirky self-defense idea grew out of a training session held for students, faculty and staff at the university by University Police Chief Mark Gordon. During one training session, a participant asked Gordon what people could possibly bring to campus that would allow them to be better prepared to fight if they needed to. 

Because the campus has a "no-weapons" policy, Gordon's advice was for people to get creative and be ready to throw something - anything - at the shooter that might distract the gunman. At one point, he mentions a hockey puck in the long list of items like staplers, and laptops. 

"It was just kind of a spur-of-the-moment idea that seemed to have some merit to it and it kind of caught on," Gordon said. 

Tom Descenna, a professor at the university who also acts as the president of the faculty union, spearheaded an effort to purchase 2,500 hockey pucks and distribute them to union members and students. 

The hockey pucks have a dual-purpose. They're also being used to help raise money for the university to fund the installation of interior locks on classroom doors. Some of the doors at the university are only lockable from the hallway. Each puck has a printed number that people can enter on the university's website to donate money for the new locks. 

"We know locking the classroom, in and of itself, is a big deterrent" to a shooter being able to enter the room, Gordon said. 

The 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech and other recent school shootings inspired Oakland University to help students prepare for a possible active shooter and defend themselves should the opportunity present itself. 

Gordon said the university's training sessions for active shooters focuses on telling people to flee first, and then, if that's not possible, to try and hide from the shooter. Fighting back with (or without) a hockey puck is "an absolute last strategy" Gordon said. 

“Anything that you can throw that’s heavy and will cause damage, cause injury is the bottom line of what you’re trying to do," he said. "(A hockey puck) was just a thing that we suggested that could possibly work, especially when you have 20 or 30 people in a classroom and they all throw hockey pucks at the same time, it would be quite the distraction."  

Photo: Getty Images


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