Hundreds of colleges across the country have bought a training program that teaches professors and students to fight back in the event of an armed threat, the Associated Press reports.

The program introduces possible responses to a shooter, instructing people to use improvised weapons and take advantage of their numbers.

After the campus shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University, more colleges and universities are offering training in such matters.

"Look at your environment through the lens of survival," said Domenick Brouillette, who administered the course at Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City, Mo., which serves more than 20,000 students. "Survivors prepare themselves both mentally and emotionally to do what it takes. It might involve life-threatening risk. You may do something you never thought you were capable of doing."

The training is produced by the Center for Personal Protection and Safety, a firm based in Spokane, Wash. The training drills teachers and students in a "survival mindset," said Randy Spivey, a former U.S. Department of Defense hostage negotiator who is executive director of the center. The center's teachers include retired FBI agents and others with federal law enforcement experience.

The program, which has been bought by nearly 500 colleges, teaches people to be aware of their surroundings and to use common objects as weapons.

Better to be prepared for such eventualities. But it is too bad that such senseless violence must be contemplated as a possibility.