Just last month, teachers at an elementary school in Indiana took part in an active shooter drill in which they were shot with plastic pellets, which they complained “hurt so bad.”

'It hurt so bad': Indiana teachers shot with plastic pellets during active shooter training https://t.co/dWe27bfjAF pic.twitter.com/nYJHSpMe9T — IndyStar (@indystar) March 21, 2019

Vox’s Dave Roberts on Friday reposted a “harrowing” account of one student who couldn’t take the drills anymore.

That might be difficult to read on this page, but here are some excerpts:

A laser tag place opened geared toward teenagers and it got no business, we tried to enjoy it but when someone pointed a laser machine gun at me and I instinctively dropped behind the nearest wall and reached to turn off my phone and I cried, I wasn’t the only one. … Everyone cries during drills, even the toughest ranch kids. Every drill comes with a full day of teachers crying and telling us that they love us all so much and would die for us, and every kid in every class looking around wondering who would I die for? Who would die for me? … School shootings control us more than adults and non-Americans could possibly imagine and nobody moves to change anything unless we’re actively screaming for it. Have you considered we’re too scared?

Note the caveat: “even though they weren’t at your school?”

We are traumatizing an entire generation of school children so that rural & suburban white guys don't have to give up their hobby. https://t.co/fKQCRNgpGB — David Roberts (@drvox) April 5, 2019

First, a lot of urban black men also have made it a “hobby” to carry guns — maybe you’ve heard of Baltimore or Chicago or Detroit?

And second, he’s half-right: We are traumatizing an entire generation of school children. Ars Technica founder John Stokes had a thing or two to say about that:

The original quote describes a scene that is totally unnecessary & infuriating. The ppl responsible for these drills, & the ppl like Roberts who act as if they're necessary because guns, are as innumerate and scientifically illiterate as the worst anti-vaxxers. https://t.co/yqIgVhF2nq — Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) April 6, 2019

There are over 100 million school kids in school in any given day. Actual active shooter incidents at school are passing rare. The kids are statistically in more danger in the car on the way to school than they are at school. — Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) April 6, 2019

I am not going to give up a single right because @drvox and his ilk can't do basic math. — Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) April 6, 2019

Here is this guy's own outlet explaining that these theatrical, traumatizing, ridiculous drills are totally unnecessary. https://t.co/rUAAdvDRbL — Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) April 6, 2019

“It’s increasingly common for schools to imitate an actual shooting, even though American schools are as safe as they’ve ever been,” Vox reports.

So no, @drvox, we are not traumatizing these kids because white guys like me "don't have to give up their hobby." We're traumatizing them because people like you can't count. — Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) April 6, 2019

I think the thing to do is to tell your daughter that this is nonsense & she has nothing to fear at school. I have 3 daughters, 1 about this age, & that's what I do because I know basic math & am against traumatizing children with innumeracy. https://t.co/OJItVdBO4J — Jon Stokes (@jonst0kes) April 6, 2019

Instead of looking at something like Parkland as the tragic outlier that it was, school administrators now assume every “suburban white guy” with a legally owned firearm is going to snap and shoot up a school. Might that have something to do with CNN whipping together a show trial just a week after a shooting and keeping it in the headlines for a year?

Maybe — just maybe — cool it with the active shooter drills and put the adults in charge of keeping schools safe on notice to do their jobs? As in, make the school feel like the safe place that it most probably is?

Related: