Rickey Red posted up two videos on social media. He believes that the textbooks our kids carry everyday could possibly save their lives. He tests some “government issued textbooks” to see if they can stop bullets.

His first video only shows the aftermath. He states that he shot three rounds into the text book. 9mm, .40S&W and .45acp. I would have liked to have seen him shoot the textbooks just to eliminate any doubt.

Having recently tested DFNDR backpack armor, I did notice something in that test and this test. The position of the armor and books with relation to the body. Take a look at the image below. That is a lot of upper torso that is not protected by the books. This can easily be remedied by raising the books higher up the chest with your bare hands.

In Rickey Red’s second video he fires a single round of 5.56 out of a 10″bbl AR pistol. It took three textbooks to stop the round. I wonder why he did not shoot It a few more times to see how well it will stand up to multiple hits? The first textbook was already compromised by the pistol rounds but would two books have stopped the round if it was not already previously hit?

Things to think about here is that it took three books to stop the 5.56 round. Obviously there are variables at play. Those text books are not all the same. Another issue is not all schools use the same textbooks. So is this a bad idea? I do not think so.  Yes there are other ways we can better protect our kids in school. But on the face value of this test it has a chance of working. Since every student has a backpack with textbooks, this may be a stop gap measure to protect them.

Let’s try to keep the comments related to this test. Do you think it could work? Could it be improved upon?