[Mika]

Odd article and seems to be written in a sensationalist way. However, I don't see anything wrong happening in the actions. Hats of to Dekker!

I do recall my friends defusing rifle bullets when they were 11 to get the gunpowder. I also do recall breaking firecrackers to get more gunpowder for a single, big, home made (!) firecracker. But that was when I was around 11, and consider that being relatively stupid as we really didn't understand what we were doing and what kind of energies we were trying to control. Saying that 11 year olds cannot construct something extremely dangerous is just, I don't know for a better word but irresponsible.

My pops and a bunch of friends used to defuse land mines and aerial bombs after WWII, them being around 11 year old. The hobby stoped when some of the friends managed to decapitate himself with a land mine. And the home of my father still has a tail of an 200 kg aerial bomb, it was used as a flower pot but has then been modified to be a grill.

Liquid nitrogen in a tightly sealed plastic bottle should be classified as a dangerous explosive already.

[Blue Lion]

Normally you can see if there is liquid in it.

If it's full and a clear liquid, maybe not. Depends on how close you get.

Looking at the list there were 5-6 or so actual bomb attacks on schools in the US in the last 50 years, and half of them were in tandem with school shootings (like columbine). Of the foiled plots, only 2 of these involved bombs and also involved not only lots of bombs but one or more guns as well. Based on this, if a kid is going to make a bomb, likely it's either a big one or lots and lots of little ones combined with guns. I'm not seeing any precedent for a kid making one small bomb at all in the US. Odds are far more likely that you'll be shot or stabbed at school that blown to bits.

Are you reading the same list I am? Since 1999 (Columbine) there have been 4 attacks that involved bombs and 4 foiled attacks that had bombs. But I think you're being nitpicky over the point. Homemade bombs are a method used by kids in school attacks.

Children carry out school attacks.

Bombs are sometimes a method used in school attacks

Teachers are not bomb techs.

I am a history teacher not a bomb tech or an engineer. This is not a kid who had a bag of skittles or drew a bomb on his notebook. This is a kid who brought in, from home, an enclosed device with wires and electronic components on it. I'm pretty sure you can make a bomb out of a gatorade bottle.

What is a teacher supposed to do when they see a student with an object that could be a bomb?

[Scotty]

You confiscate it, take it to someone who knows what the hell they are talking about (science teacher, maybe?  If that fails, sure, call the police), and then when you told by that someone that it is NOT a bomb, you give it back at the end of the day.

You do not need to close the school. (Although, I have to wonder why they waited two hours if they thought it was a bomb to close the school.)
You do not need to have a MAST team come in.
You do not need to send the kid to counseling.

[iamzack]

When we had a bomb threat at my high school last year, they put everyone in the football field and had teachers walk around looking in rooms for anything "suspicious." So I can't help but think this situation was a huge overreaction.

[Blue Lion]

You confiscate it, take it to someone who knows what the hell they are talking about (science teacher, maybe?  If that fails, sure, call the police), and then when you told by that someone that it is NOT a bomb, you give it back at the end of the day.

You do not need to close the school. (Although, I have to wonder why they waited two hours if they thought it was a bomb to close the school.)
You do not need to have a MAST team come in.
You do not need to send the kid to counseling.

Take it? Really? What if it's a bomb and he panics and blows it up? Your scenario works great if it's not a bomb. If it is a bomb I've just said "Hey kid, I know you have a bomb." If this is a kid who wants to hurt people, I'm pretty sure he may try to hurt me if he wants to get his plan off.

You know what I'm not gonna do? Hold in my hands the object that may be a bomb.

[iamzack]

You know what else makes exactly as much sense? Not getting on a plane ever because youre afraid it will crash.

[General Battuta]

Yeah. I can't help but think the odds of a bomb attack are so low that it doesn't justify this.

[Blue Lion]

Your standard procedure for dealing with items that might be bombs is to pick them up and walk around with them?

[General Battuta]

No, my standard procedure is to recognize that the odds that it is a bomb are astronomically low, go up and ask the kid what it is.

[iamzack]

Exactly. And if you think the kid might be lying, take it and call his parents and ask them if they know anything about it.

[Blue Lion]

And when he lies to you? Or panics?

I have never ever seen any safety regulation, be it school, workplace, or government that says "If you see an object that looks like a bomb, it's very likely it's not a bomb, so pick it up and take it to someone who might know"

Where I work, a college, it says don't touch it. Get people away. Call the police.

Where I go to school, also a college, it also says do not touch the object. Get people away, call the cops.

Everyone says the same thing: if it could be a bomb, don't touch it, because it could be a bomb.

[Blue Lion]

Exactly. And if you think the kid might be lying, take it and call his parents and ask them if they know anything about it.

And if it is a bomb you've just killed yourself.

[iamzack]

Maybe minorly injured yourself and that kid in this case.

[Scotty]

Let's take a quick look at numbers.

How many students are there in the United States alone?  (According to the wiki, just over 54.4 million in just Primary and Secondary schools)
How many devices and/or projects have those students brought in to show everyone? (Let's be conservative and say an average of two a year.)
How many of those devices have turned out to be bombs? (You yourself only brought up EIGHT, the last dozen years.)

What does that work out to?  About 1 in 13,600,000.

You might as well say "The odds of a plane crashing are astronomically low.  Then again, if it crashes, I just killed myself."  Not getting on a plane because of an astronomically low chance of failure is generally considered to be excessively paranoid.  Not asking the kid about it because of an astronomically low chance of it being a bomb is, so far on this thread, considered to be excessivly paranoid.  Do you see the connection I'm trying to draw for you?

[General Battuta]

Exactly. And if you think the kid might be lying, take it and call his parents and ask them if they know anything about it.

And if it is a bomb you've just killed yourself.

Yes, and if you're struck by lightning at that very moment you're probably dead, and guess what! The odds are probably higher!

[Blue Lion]

Let's take a quick look at numbers.

How many students are there in the United States alone?  (According to the wiki, just over 54.4 million in just Primary and Secondary schools)
How many devices and/or projects have those students brought in to show everyone? (Let's be conservative and say an average of two a year.)
How many of those devices have turned out to be bombs? (You yourself only brought up EIGHT, the last dozen years.)

What does that work out to?  About 1 in 13,600,000.

You might as well say "The odds of a plane crashing are astronomically low.  Then again, if it crashes, I just killed myself."  Not getting on a plane because of an astronomically low chance of failure is generally considered to be excessively paranoid.  Not asking the kid about it because of an astronomically low chance of it being a bomb is, so far on this thread, considered to be excessivly paranoid.  Do you see the connection I'm trying to draw for you?

Oh I do, but it's not the 13,599,99 that bother me. It's the one.

I'm just amazed, schools, governments, workplaces, the police.... everyone says "Don't touch the bomb, get someone who knows what they're doing"

But the people with little to no bomb experience are telling me to pick up the object.

Why is not simply easier to do what the cops say and let them tell me if the item that looks like a bomb is in fact a bomb.

[Blue Lion]

Exactly. And if you think the kid might be lying, take it and call his parents and ask them if they know anything about it.

And if it is a bomb you've just killed yourself.

Yes, and if you're struck by lightning at that very moment you're probably dead, and guess what! The odds are probably higher!

Run outside in a thunderstorm with a metal pole? What are the odds?

I just love that people are telling to pick up the object because the alternative is far more dangerous: the kid might get embarrassed and I would do exactly what the police want me to do. And really, isn't running the risk of blowing yourself up worth to save the self esteem of one child?

[General Battuta]

I haven't advocated picking the device up at any point.

[Scotty]

Because then you get crap like the kid getting sent to counseling for no reason whatsoever as if he did something wrong, and panic attacks that could be averted with a modicum of common sense.

As it stands, it is so statistically improbable, leaning on astronomical, that you might as well not fly on planes if you think that any one of those little projects could be a bomb.

EDIT BEFORE THE POST:  Well, run a cost-benefit analysis on approaching the child.  If the device is a bomb, sucks for you.  That would be a bad thing, we all agree.  However, the odds of that happenening are astronomically low.  If the device is not a bomb, there is no harm done, and you kept the kid from being the next best thing to arrested for something he did to impress his friends.  If self-esteem matters even a tenth as much as all those school counselors say it does, it actually is worth it (IMHO).

Run outside in a thunderstorm with a metal pole? What are the odds?

Without a metal pole, in the middle of a clear sky, you are more likely to get struck by lightning than a kid is to bring a bomb to school.  Interestingly enough, I don't picture you as the kind of person who huddles in his house all day for fear of being struck by lightning, even though the risk is greater and doing that completely nullifies the risk.  Go figure.

[General Battuta]

Walk up to the kid and ask him what it is.

The odds that it is a bomb and that he will, as a result, detonate it are so incredibly low that you would, in fact, be at great risk of death from a car careening out of control, plowing through the school, and hitting you.