Thoughts & Prayers (2025)

This documentary takes a look at the industry that has sprung up in response to mass shootings in America's schools. Not only are there now "active shooter drills" in classrooms, the students can protect themselves with bullet-proof backpacks and tables that can be utilized as automatic weapon shields!

It's a sobering topic that this documentary doesn't seem to know how to handle. We just get a parade of products, befuddled educators, and anxious students. Maybe a counterpoint from the perspective of educators and/or students in countries that don't have this problem (i.e. all the other ones) could've driven home the point that this industry doesn't have to exist? Instead, it just keeps going and going and going without ever being brave enough to outright say what it should.

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