At St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, the entrance has a dark red sign (sooooo easy to read…. *eye roll*) that says Absolutely No Weapons Permitted. I was concerned because practically every person who was in the hospital was armed to the teeth.

The nurses carried sharp scissors and pens that could stab. There were scalpels. The sheer amount of poisons just sitting around were scary. The chairs were not bolted to the floor, making them bludgeons you can sit on. People were allowed to walk around without their fists bound or their teeth covered via Hannibal Lecter masks. For God’s sake, they even had Oxygen Deprivation Devices (aka pillows) in each child’s room!!

If you were wanting to deal out a larger amount of damage, there was unlimited, flammable hand sanitizer you could use to wreak havoc.

Now, this is a private institution - they’re more than welcome to ban left shoes, Tap Out t-shirts and bubble gum at their whim. I’m sure that the weapons thing is the product of some lawyerly brain trust who thinks a sign is all the talisman they need to avoid lawsuits however my problem with it is that signs like that continue to promote the false, logically incorrect view that an object is a weapon that doesn’t require a human to operate it and by simply waving a magic wand posting a sign and preventing said objects from crossing a threshold, danger is removed.

Bullshit.

There is no weapon without the human. If they found a dagger used to kill Julius Caesar and put it in a display case, it ceases to be a weapon and instead becomes an historical relic to look upon. However, if you were to shatter the glass that encased the knife, grabbed a shard, and tried to stab the guard with it, the very thing that protected the knife against fingerprints and sneezes is now the weapon.

Signs do nothing to stop a criminal. The law abiding tend to follow them. What this means is at the very time someone with ill intent enters to do harm, the very people you need to be armed, aren’t. If signs against objects worked, why not simply change them to say “No crime is permitted”. That way, the law abiding can remain within the bounds of your rules while not putting them at the mercy of the criminal?

Oh, and by the way - the entire campus is posted as a smoke free area. Twice I had to walk through a cloud of smoke where the offender was literally leaning on a ‘No Smoking’ sign. The magic signs didn’t work there, they won’t work on a determined criminal intent on doing harm.