Say what you want about us Americans, but admit that we are inventive people.

The horrors of school shootings have riveted our attention in recent weeks, and there have been lots of ideas about how to combat a school terrorist. The solutions have largely fallen along political lines.

Liberals and Democrats want to collect our guns, revoke the 2nd Amendment and abolish the NRA.

Conservatives and Republicans want to arm teachers and put more law enforcement officers in the schools.

And then there’s the creative superintendent of a rural school district in Pennsylvania. He is equipping every classrooom in the Blue Mountain School District with a 5-gallon bucket of river rocks. If a shooter visits, students will pelt him with rocks.

Crazy?

Maybe, but I like his idea.

Stones may be a poor weapon compared to a gun, but they are at least something. The school superintendent called the bucket of rocks a last resort should an intruder burst into a classroom.

Other classrooms in America have no means of defense. Students crouch under desks or in closets hoping the shooter doesn’t find them. They lock the doors and pray.

What if they became aggressors?

A single rock hurled at a shooter might miss. If 30 rocks are hurled in unison, chances are some will find their target.

It’s not a fair fight, but at least students aren’t totally defenseless.

Another school suggested the students collect soup cans and pelt an attacker with cream of chicken.

I like the stones better. There was a time when I was pretty handy with a rock.

I like the idea because it puts a potential school shooter on notice that Blue Mountain students are no longer sitting ducks.

Who wants to brave a barrage of rocks, even when armed with a gun?

A lot of people are playing politics with the school shooting issue, seizing on the recent Florida school tragedy to advance their long-standing agendas to punish their opponents.

What makes more practical sense is a concentrated effort to harden schools against often mentally-deranged intruders, usually students themselves. A bucket of rocks is a very small start, but one superintendent has done something without an act of Congress and at the price of some plastic buckets. The rocks are free in the nearest mountain stream.

Like many schools, the Blue Mountain district’s response is called ALICE, which stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. The rocks are a desperate way of countering a shooter if he gets into the classroom. It’s not much, but it’s something.

The buckets of rocks are kept in the classroom closets.

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Weed of the week: Chickweed. It’s taking over the world. Well, at least my yard. I sprayed it like crazy with 2-4-D a week ago, and that seems to have done the trick.

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Their dream foray into March Madness came to an end last week for twins Caleb and Cody Martin and the University of Nevada. The one-time Davie High basketball duo helped their team reach the Sweet 16 with come-from-behind second half rallies, but there the season ended 69-68 to another upstart team, Loyola of Chicago.

I had never before pulled for a Nevada school.

— Dwight Sparks