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Klepto666 t1_jec4n5o wrote

Reply to comment by Hmmletmec in I remember when…. by Kaa_The_Snake

If you mean hiding under a desk to deflect a 5.56 round fired from 500+ yards away, then yes you are absolutely correct, when trying to compare it to "duck and cover."

It was never meant to be used in the sense of "Oh my god they're dropping a nuke on my town, let me hide under my desk and I'll be safe from a nuke!" I'm sure there were some people who wanted to stick their heads in the sand and believe it'd save them from a ground zero nuclear blast just so they wouldn't be petrified with fear... but that was never the purpose.

It was for outside that range, where a blast would still shatter windows and destabilize structures but not vaporize you or put you in the vicinity of fallout. And even then it was only minor protection. But that's SOME vs NONE. And you'd be hard pressed to find someone who says "Nah I'll take the 0% chance of surviving over 25%."

Same goes for natural disasters. The desk is not the sole magical protection, it's about other stuff falling on you that it can deflect or help bear the weight of.

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Double_Distribution8 t1_jed8hdm wrote

Yep, and anything they could do to dissuade students from staring out the glass windows at the bright lights in the sky is a good thing.

I think that lesson may have been mostly learned from the Halifax explosion where a ton of townsfolk died when the ship exploded in the harbor, and the rest of the folks who survived the blast went blind from watching the explosion from their windows. Flying broken glass does terrible things to eyeballs.

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Zirenth t1_jedyrjm wrote

If a nuke is going off then I’ll take that 0% chance over 25% chance.

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