Dorney Park pulls bullets with names on them from merchandise offering

wahoo skipper said:

how about condom's with names on them? If you don't like them...don't buy them, right? Maybe Elitch Garden's should have some Marijuana on the shelf. It's legal out there, after all.

I'm fine with both of these.

Coasterfantom2 said:

Jeff your son's fear is real. You have to evaluate every situation and evaluate the escape routes. Living in Orlando you should know that by now, and they are just trying to prepare your son for that.

As a teacher, it is not clear to me that the psychological cost of all these drills on our kids is worth the lives they save in the (still) incredibly minute number of cases where they apply. You're talking about tens of millions of kids doing drills where they imagine being shot at to save maybe a hundred lives at best. I'm not saying I'm convinced one way or the other, but I can't imagine this is good for our kids.

You make a good point Andy, and one we've been talking about a lot around here. It reminds me of the nuclear attack drills when we all learned to dive under our desks (as if that would have done a damn thing by the way). I guess it gave adults a sense of "hey, at least we are doing something" but the reality is that it was pointless. I know one thing...the drills are disruptive to the day.

That isn't to say that we should do nothing. We have between one and two FT police officers on our school campuses now (based on school population). We have increased the physical security of our schools (single point access), added window screens that teachers can pull in the event of an incident, etc.

Back to the topic at hand...amusement parks need to be current on societal issues. Security check points, video cameras, random searches, etc are all necessary in today's world. Who they choose as sponsors, what they sell, and even where their rides are manufactured are going to be judged by the consumer more than ever before. Look at the film industry and their reluctance to work in Georgia after the abortion ban. There are serious repercussions to decision making these days. A bullet souvenir in 2019? Somebody missed the big picture on that one.

I was thinking about the nuclear drills, though in inner city Cleveland they insisted it was for tornado preparedness (in January), but I had a teacher that was honest. I remember losing a lot of sleep over the possibility of nuclear holocaust (and thank The Day After for visuals, and my parents for letting me watch that horrible thing). So to be fair, school shootings are the new nukes, for sure.

Like I said though, this is a uniquely American problem, and we allow our BS exceptionalism be an excuse for why we can't change it.

ApolloAndy said:
As a teacher, it is not clear to me that the psychological cost of all these drills on our kids is worth the lives they save in the (still) incredibly minute number of cases where they apply. You're talking about tens of millions of kids doing drills where they imagine being shot at to save maybe a hundred lives at best. I'm not saying I'm convinced one way or the other, but I can't imagine this is good for our kids.

The same argument can be made for tornado drills, fire drills, and earthquake drills. How many schools are hit by tornadoes or earthquakes every year? Yet the schools in those targeted areas still complete drills.

Many police officers never fire their weapon at someone, yet they're given dozens of hours of training on how to do it, and continue to practice it throughout their career. I've had a form of CPR/AED certification since 1996, and (excluding the few years I was an actual EMT), never had to do it on someone. Yet I still take training classes every year.

The fact is that without being prepared, then you're staring at 30 kids in a classroom who have no idea what to do when something happens. If the fire alarm goes off, the tornado siren wails, or the ground starts to shake, at least the drills will lessen the time a person takes to react. They might need a reminder from a more-cognizant person: "That's the fire alarm, students - let's line up." or "Earthquake! Get under your desks!" Once reality merges with training in someone's head, the ability for them to do what they were trained greatly increases.

I hate the fact my kids have to go through active shooter drills. I hate that our country has somehow glorified this level of violence to the point that someone thinks it's okay. But I don't hate that the schools are actually doing something that could help in the situation; because standing there isn't any better than hiding in a corner and locking the door.

I've had discussions with my kids. I've explained that the drill is just as important as any other drill they may do in class, but the chance of it happening is just as slim. When school shootings occur, we talk about it and confirm that we, their teachers, and their school do all they can to keep them safe.

We all enjoy a hobby that puts us in peril every time we strap the harness in. We constantly remind others that riding a coaster is safer than driving in the car to the park. Yet people still die on rides, sometimes at the negligence of someone or something outside the rider's control.

wahoo skipper said:

how about condom's with names on them? If you don't like them...don't buy them, right?

Right. That's precisely my point. I'd probably have a similar reaction whether I saw souvenir bullets or condoms in an amusement park gift shop, but complaining about them to the park on social media wouldn't even enter my mind. But I'm one of those increasingly rare people who don't offend easily.

I generally agree that if a threat exists and there are measures that can be taken to mitigate the risk (safety drills), then those measures should be taken and people should be prepared. However, on a psychological level, all threats aren't equal. There's a difference between an accident or a natural disaster and a person trying to kill you that even young children can grasp. While actually experiencing a real fire, tornado, earthquake, etc. can be frightening and traumatizing, I think running preparedness drills for these events barely registers as anything scary. However, the "bad guys are coming to get you" drills (nuclear attack, active shooter) are in a different category, and I think is fair and even imperative that we weigh the costs and benefits of these drills and carefully examine what effect they're having on school kids.

As Bakeman points out, there seems to be a difference between the impact that active-shooter drills have on kids and the impact of other similar exercises. FWIW, I have declined to schedule our campus safety office's "Run Hide Fight" presentation in my Department for the same reasons, though we do have fire and severe weather drills regularly for the buildings we occupy. This is one of the benefits of being the Chair...

Bakeman31092 said:

...However, on a psychological level, all threats aren't equal. There's a difference between an accident or a natural disaster and a person trying to kill you that even young children can grasp.

I think this 100% captures what I was trying to articulate, but in fewer words.

Vater, social media is where I find most of the complaints about my (public) parks. I guess it would be nice if someone would just pick up the phone and say, "hey...the water fountain isn't working". On the upside, I do monitor social media so when those complaints come I can react quickly, take care of the issue, and respond that I did. I actually saw a good example of that by the Cedar Point GM a couple of years ago when there was a complaint about smoking in non-designated areas. Social media can be a curse to businesses but it can also be an effective tool, if used properly.

Sure, I totally agree that social media is an effective tool, but that wasn't my point. My issue is with the complaint itself. Granted, judging from the differences in opinion here, I'm in the minority, but I don't find anything inherently wrong with selling souvenir bullets. kpjb made the point earlier that, regardless of how silly a personalized bullet might be, most sane people should be able to separate them from a tragic event.

On a completely unrelated note, for the first half of this thread I thought the headline was indicating that someone fired bullets with names on them into a merchandise shop. I was so confused.

Well, that I'd disagree with.

Oh c'mon, it's a free country. As long as no one gets hurt, do what you wanna do.

The issue is having names on the bullets. If you look closely you can see that none of Rambo’s bullets have names on them. That makes it OK.

How did you get the "Welcome to Detroit" video?