US middle schoolers given bulletproof shields as graduation gift

A Pennsylvania middle school has given final-year pupils bulletproof shields as preparation for starting high school.

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.”