Seriously?

[Sheenar]

Toy Gun Causes Lockdown at Sam Houston State

http://www.click2houston.com/news/25480821/detail.html

I missed some serious craziness on my day off. And our emergency alert system wasn't even activated --so had this been an actual emergency, the student body would be in bad shape. I found out about this from the news and got no notice from the university.

[Midori]

Well if someone calls the police saying "There's people with guns on campus" they ought to close it down. It'd be the fault of the caller for not realizing they're fake.

[Sheenar]

Yes it is the fault of the caller for not realizing that they were Nerf guns, but the university is to blame for the failure to launch our emergency response system --that we, as students, pay for. We got no notice whatsoever that this was happening --we are supposed to get a text and an email from the university in the event of an emergency.
If there was a real shooter, I'd like to know --so, if I'm walking on campus, I can seek shelter. I should not have to depend on the news and Facebook to find out about things like this.

Anyway, HOW can you confuse a Nerf or airsoft gun for a real one? How?

[Cognitive Gear]

Anyway, HOW can you confuse a Nerf or airsoft gun for a real one? How?

I have no idea about how you could confuse the nerf guns, but many, many airsoft guns are replicas of real guns.

Regardless, the emergency response system not working is disappointing. Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call to those in charge of it.

[Mithrandir]

Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call to those in charge of it.

My thoughts on this are: "I'd rather it was a false positive where we discovered a major flaw in the system than a real emergency where people died."

[mechana2015]

A few of the newer, larger nerf guns (while still made with the bright colors) do resemble assault rifles, including using clips of ammunition. That being said, I'd rather have a false alarm that turns out to be nothing ( we had one a year or so ago at the university I work at due to a umbrella that resembled a katana, though our alert system actually went into effect) than laugh off something as fake and deal with a shooting.

And many of the airsoft guns out there do resemble real guns very very closely, or are direct replicas.

[Cognitive Gear]

My thoughts on this are: "I'd rather it was a false positive where we discovered a major flaw in the system than a real emergency where people died."

Precisely. I know that whoever is in charge of it is likely also in charge of a thousand other things, but this system is important. In my experience, tiny details slip through the cracks until something goes wrong, and it's always better when it's something a little bit dumb like this that makes it apparent to my work-weary eyes.

[Sheenar]

I agree. I'm glad that we can laugh about this. One friend said that we lost our football game today because our players were afraid of getting shot by a Nerf assassin. I am SO happy that it wasn't actually something serious.

I just hope that it causes the university to rethink how our emergency alert system is set up and make the necessary changes.