Panic Buttons Aren’t Bulletproof

When there’s money to be made off dead children, someone will find a way.

Enter Centegix, the company peddling wearable “panic button” lanyards to schools across Alabama. They claim these badges will save precious seconds during a crisis, never mind that teachers have to press the button three times just to alert an administrator or eight times to trigger a lockdown. Eight taps. In an emergency. While adrenaline is spiking, kids are screaming, and the situation is unfolding in real time.

But sure, tell me again how this “saves seconds.”

And now Centegix is lobbying lawmakers to mandate their product statewide under the banner of Alyssa’s Law. Alyssa’s Law is named after Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the students killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. The law pushes for “silent panic alert systems” in every school so police can supposedly be notified instantly during an active shooter situation. It sounds compassionate on paper, but in practice it’s become a sales pitch for tech vendors who package fear into subscription models and hardware contracts.

Nothing motivates like legislation that guarantees a captive market. They’re not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. They want a law that forces every district to buy in so they can keep cashing checks off school shootings.

What’s never mentioned is what tech these devices rely on. Wi-Fi? Bluetooth? Cellular? All three are notorious for cutting out when you need them most. They fail in crowded spaces. They fail in storms. They fail when the power goes out. But we’re supposed to believe that a lanyard with an SOS button is the miracle solution that will stop a massacre. It’s security theater dressed up as safety.

And while Centegix chases its payday, lawmakers are lining up to talk about “smart spending.” Rep. Susan DuBose from Hoover actually said the quiet part out loud. Alabama isn’t a wealthy state, so the money needs to be spent in the smartest way to protect kids. True. But maybe the smartest way isn’t dropping taxpayer dollars on panic jewelry and calling it prevention.

Maybe, and stick with me here, Alabama could spend that money on education, since the state is consistently scraping the bottom of national rankings. Or, even more radical, they could address the actual source of the threat. Gun control. Access. Storage laws. Background checks. Red flag policies. Anything that goes after the guns instead of slapping gadgets on teachers like they’re mall security guards.

But gun control doesn’t make donors happy. Panic buttons, apparently, do.

So here we are. Lawmakers patting themselves on the back for “taking action,” a company cashing in on fear, and teachers being told to tap dance on a lanyard while someone with an AR-15 walks the halls.

Call it preparedness if you want. I call it profit with a body count.

(Source)