In the wake of one of the most deadly school shootings in U.S. history, parents everywhere are looking for ways to make their children safer while at school.
“It’s a vicious cycle, and I’m not satisfied to just sit back and just wait for somebody else to take care of it anymore,” says Charlotte mom Michelle Valada who has a kindergartener.
Instead of waiting on lawmakers and school districts to act, parents are instead taking school safety into their own hands.
“I grabbed one and put it in my daughter’s backpack. She came home and said, 'You know, I opened my backpack and I felt good, I felt safe,” said Tina Nichols of Nichols Store in Rock Hill.
Nichols is referring to a bulletproof insert which the store usually sells to police. But after witnessing the horror in Parkland, Florida, Nichols said she thought students should be able to carry one as well and is now setting out to make other parents’ aware.
“To give somebody a sense of safety because it’s a sign of the times, and if we can save one person’s life out there, we’ve done our job,” Nichols said.
The bulletproof insert weighs one pound, comes in various sizes to fit almost all back-packs and retails for under $200.
Other parents have started sending their children to school with doorstops after a Facebook post, originally posted after the Sandy-Hook shooting, went viral again. Parents believed the doorstop would help keep an attacker out even when the lock was shot-out.
NBC Charlotte put doorstops, both rubber and metal, to the test and found none of them worked when pushed on with force. One thing students can count on though, according to security expert Rob Pincus, is books.
Pincus, who offers active shooter training through his company I.C.E. Training, said books can act as a shield. In a video, Pincus fired at two books roughly three feet away from him.
“Definitely an exit on the first book and the bullet has completely stopped right here on the face of the second book,” Pincus said in the video.
Many are asking if books or a bullet-proof insert could withstand the power of an assault rifle. If you ask Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Samantha Grady, who was shot when the gunman began firing into her classroom, the answer is yes.
Grady said she hid behind a bookshelf when the shooter began firing. That’s when Grady said her friend yelled, "Grab a book, grab a book!"
“So I grabbed a book, it was a tiny book, but I took a book and held it up and I believe maybe the book deterred some of the bullets. So it didn't hit me so badly," said Grady.
When asked if school districts allowed items such as bullet-proof backpacks on campus, we were referred to each district’s parent/student handbooks.