I have read recently in a number of newspapers that school districts across the nation are being asked to consider ALICE (alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate) Training as part of their Emergency Crisis Response plans. While most of the ALICE Training is the typical training that has been pretty much standard in schools for years, the controversy is over the “COUNTER” portion of the training that has trainers teaching young unarmed students to attack an armed gunman with pencils, books or any object around them. YES, you read that right! An unarmed, young child attacking an armed, crazed gunman in hopes of over-powering the gunman. Thank goodness many districts and law enforcement agencies have already turned down the Texas Businessman’s offer to have this training, but strangely enough, a number of districts have gone through with this training. There are so many flaws with this training and thinking, that would have many wondering what school district attorney would authorize this anyway. Major flaws like the fact that there is not one single shred of evidence that this strategy works or has ever saved a life. It also make a very poor assumption that every armed gunman that does breech security and enters a classroom will go Columbine and begin killing students. School Safety Experts know that’s simply not the case. Many armed gunman have entered classrooms but exited without shooting anyone. Had a student thrown something at the gunman, would that have been enough to push the gunman into a shooting frenzy? Also, since most school shooters are other students, aren’t also teaching potential gunman the class protocol? Again, the arguments NOT to move forward with ALICE far outweigh the reasons for implementation.