"Inflatable body armor light enough for a first grader to blow up and hide behind. These are just a few of the more sensible products that are on display in the opening moments of Zackary Canepari and Jessica Dimmock's utterly damning "Thoughts & Prayers" - the least farcical selection of props that contribute to America's burgeoning active shooter defense industry, which now grosses more than three billion dollars per year."
"Of course, that's a small price to pay for the laughably transparent illusion that we're taking any meaningful steps toward protecting our kids from being slaughtered in their classrooms. In a crumbling empire where common sense has been eroded by ideology, and the political will to solve a problem can't hope to compete with the ghoulish impulse to profit from it, creating a new business sector might just be the only kind of healing that the richest country on Earth can afford."
Bulletproof desks, robot dogs, and inflatable body armor serve as exemplars of a booming active-shooter defense industry that now grosses more than three billion dollars per year. Many products are gimmicky and offer only the illusion of meaningful protection for children in classrooms. Ideological erosion of common sense and lack of political will enable a profit-driven response that monetizes tragedy. The tone is mordant and glib, presenting the phenomenon as a darkly comic ritual of mass psychosis. Satirical comparisons evoke institutionalized absurdity and emphasize the gap between spectacle and substantive prevention.
Read at IndieWire
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