Forget about a “good guy with a gun.” Fox News wants that guy armed with a cannon.
On Thursday, Fox News proposed a unique way to reduce fatalities at schools targeted by mass shooters.
In “School shootings: This cannon fires unbelievable ammo to blast through walls and help rescue victims,” Fox News “defense specialist” Allison Barrie writes about a cannon called the “BCB Wall Breaker” that fires water cooler tanks at high velocities. Barrie suggests the cannon could help students escape mass shootings by blasting down walls.
School shootings: This cannon fires unbelievable ammo to blast through walls and help rescue victims https://t.co/b0fxMrfbt1
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 31, 2018
From the article:
Imagine students barricaded in classrooms with no way to escape. The shooter is roaming the hallways. The only exit is the door to the hallway. If students tried to escape via the hallway, they could be greatly at risk.
Outside the school building, police could roll up these water cannons and quickly punch holes in the walls of every classroom providing large escape holes.
If students have been wounded, first responders can use the hole to accelerate access to medical care.
In both these instances, escape and medical care for wounded, seconds are vital and can mean the difference between life and death.
The cannon can also be useful for perpetrator apprehension. An active shooter will expect law enforcement to intervene through doors and windows. With this cannon, law enforcement can fire the cannon at any wall to create their own “door.”
The piece doesn’t address the possibility that blasting down the wall of a school with a powerful cannon could bury students in rubble. The weapon can is capable “of firing a 22Kg projectile with sufficient force to punch through, non explosively, a double skin breeze block cavity wall.”
Fox News’ piece does reflect the accepted wisdom among President Trump’s faction of the Republican Party, which ignores that there are far more school shootings in the U.S. than in countries with stricter gun laws, and argues militarizing schools is the best way to protect students.
Fox News dropped its piece on water cannons on the same day that President Trump traveled to Texas to meet with family members of the 10 people killed during a mass shooting at Santa Fe High School on May 18.
During a news conference following that shooting, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) blamed doors, saying, “Had there been one single entrance possibly for every student, maybe he [i.e., the shooter] would have been stopped.”
On Wednesday, a young boy who was attending a White House press briefing asked Press Secretary Sarah Sanders what the Trump administration has done to prevent future school shootings. She answered by mentioning meetings that haven’t happened yet.