Apparently that is part of their purpose. When presented with lightning, however, they turn to conductors allowing the lightning to pass to ground. You can see their teardown in video form ...

A survey by Monitor in the 124 government primary schools in the District established massive vandalism of the lightning arresters Unknown criminals have stolen lightning arresters from all 124 ...

An curved arrow pointing right. What are those odd looking things you always see attached to power lines? Turns out, they're called lightning arresters and they're crucial to preventing certain ...