US middle schoolers given bulletproof shields as graduation gift

Class of 14-year-olds to start high school
with reinforced kevlar backpack plates

One-Minute Read

At a school assembly on Monday morning, 14-year-olds at St
Cornelius School were presented with a SafeShield kevlar plate as a
macabre graduation “gift”, courtesy of local body armour
manufacturer Unequal Technology.

The 10” by 12” reinforced kevlar plate is
designed to slot into the back of a student’s rucksack, offering
them some protection if they are targeting while fleeing a school
shooting.

Presenting the plates to 25 teachers and 15
final-year students who will start high school in autumn, Unequal
Technology owner Rob Vito said it was “better to have it and not
need it, than to need it and not have it”.

The plates “have been shown to stop bullets up to a
.357 Sig, a 9mm full metal jacket round, and a .44 Magnum round,
Vito told the students, several of whom looked somberly at their
laps”, local newspaper Chester County Press reports.

However, the company does not claim that the shield is
effective against a semi-automatic rifle, “which has been used
repeatedly in the nation’s mass-shooting epidemic”, says the
New York Post.

“Similar products have shown to be ineffective
against such weapons.”

Principal Barbara Rosini said that she had
reached out to Vito, whose own children attend St Cornelius, after
attending a school safety conference.

“I worry about them going off to high school,”
she said. “We can’t say ‘It won’t happen here’ anymore. It happens
in big cities and in little towns. But this product, I believe, is
something that could help our children be safer.”