Schools are broke in Illinois. State money withheld all the time leaving school administrators to jockey accounts to cut spending. Many operating in the red and facing closure.
Pritsker will fix it though with Madigan on his side. (Sac off)
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Great Point!!
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I am a teacher in the state of California and I DEFINITELY think that we should be able to conceal carry at a school. I think that if a teacher is wanting to carry they should have the appropriate training to carry and it should be a lot more in depth as far as awareness of when to draw your gun. I have definitely dealt with some CRAZY parents coming into the classroom since I work in a lower income school with a lot of ghetto people that can come into the class and have stirred up a lot of trouble in my classroom. I know we have a lot of parents that are trouble and I want to just be prepared just Incase.
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I know youāre being tongue ān cheek. It seems that there should be a special wing in some prison for Illinois governors. Thereās been so many sent to prisons. Between JB Pritzker and The Madigan Family and so many Illinois politicians, to many to list. Illinois is broke and the state credit rating is in the sewer but we have so many programs and no money to fund these programs.
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welcome to the community @Cody7
I 100% back your position on this, and I donāt envy you, being in that environment. Iād be interested in your thoughts on what the best way to manage being armed in a classroom isā¦ CC? Stored in a safe in the classroom? How would you control access to your firearm?
I have a great granddaughter and sheās a total fireball of energy. Iām thinking that having a room full of that energy, and some of it in the form of troubled kids or those from hard homes, would make for a challenge. Knowing thatās the case, what strategy for firearm control / concealment / access would you choose?
One of the reasons I ask is that when I discuss this with folks, the mass of active children and their distraction factor, along with young foolishness, machismo, and bad actors makes most of the folks who are alarmed about the idea that much more alarmed. Iād like to offer some useful discussion on it, but ā¦ Iām not a teacher, and I tend to limit my exposure to children to just a handful of the well-behaved sort, so I donāt have much in the way of personal experience to draw on.
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Not that I would say this is a policy in place anywhere already but.
Some rules to avoid problems:
Should a school shooting begin a special warning alarm is to be triggered by the administration. That would be an audible alarm coded specifically to indicate a school shooting is underway.
There should be at least two secure places from which this alarm can be triggered.
At the same time, an automated text should be sent to all faculty and staff confirming itās not a drill and that a shooting is underway and it should come from a specific saved emergency number all can identify as authentic.
No one on the faculty/staff is to access a firearm period without those alarms or when themselves confronted by a deadly threat.
At the sound of the alarm, teachers should immediately move all there students to a prearranged safe area of the classroom. That should be along the same wall as the classroom door or a specific hardened area that is easily defendable.
Teachers/staff should then take up a good defensive position giving them a clear line of fire to the door and be trained only to fire if they positively identify the shooter coming through the door.
Everyone remains on this heightened state of alert until receiving the āall clearā both by audible alarm and again via secure text and/or phone call.
Unless you have people on site who have already received a higher level of training similar to our School Marshal Program here in TX they should under no circumstances leave their charges to seek out a shooter.
Programs like these simply are not that difficult to implement safely and effectively and with the least possibility of risk.
We also need to keep people cognizant of the minimal risk of a mass shooting at a school. We have around 110,000 public primary and secondary schools in the US. On average no more than one or two will be targeted in any given year so that risk is less than 1:60,000 on any given year.
The threat is real but despite all of the histrionic BS of the media the actual risk is very low.
Now, there are quite a few "school shootingsā every year but most of those result from some kids bringing a gun to school and having an ND, or some sort of grudge between individuals in the school or some sort of gang/drug activity involving individuals in the parking lot. The chances of one of these types of incidents turning into a mass shooting are very small and generally do not require anything other than sheltering in place and waiting on the situation to be resolved by authorities.
Properly trained, well armed faculty and staff however are in a far better position to stop would be mass shooters than any LEO on campus hundreds of yards away, or LEOās blocks or miles away before casualties reach double digits.
In the vast majority of cases all it takes to stop these shooters is for someone to engage them with fire. Once they are so engaged over 80% will either surrender or take their own lives.
Remember too that you generally have less than 5 minutes to stop a mass shooter because these shootings are almost always over in under five minutes.
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Very much in line with my own thinking. I like the āalarm/textā idea.
Regards.
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Proper impementation takes some time and planning and a willingness to change policies as more is learned.
Definitely there are problems to overcome but none of them are all that difficult and certainly not insurmountable if a school district wants to protect their faculty, staff, and kids.
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One of my bedrock beliefs about what it means to be intelligent.
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And more importantly, sane. āDoing the same thing, the same way time after time expecting a different result is the definition of insanityā- Someone wiser than me.
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I truly respect teachers who are out there dealing with difficult students and more importantly difficult parents. I know my children werenāt angels and I backed up the teachers when appropriate. My kids were the ones who liked to help and be social. 
Iām guessing thatās the least of teachersās worries these days.
Glad to have you here, @Cody7!
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Reading thru the responses Iāve noticed a common trend. Should teachers be armed people are assuming that they would be required to be armed.
The question should be Should teachers be allowed to be armed. Obviously there should be policies in place that would protect the students and staff.
People will attempt to stop an attack whether armed or not, if a teacher wants the best tools available to them to intervene I 100% support them.
I also donāt think anything less of anyone not wanting the responsibility. Itās not something to be taken lightly.
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Agreed. Definitely shouldnāt be required. Iāll take that a step further. Donāt offer a ābonus if they do carry. The President floated that idea back a while ago. I think the increase in pay, would encourage someone who shouldnāt carry a gun, to do so, just for the ābumpā in their paycheck.
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@45IPAC. I fully agree. Trained Staffers in places of education would be the best First Responders until police arrive on scene since Schools are deemed Gun Free Zones
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If the police arrive. I am sorry for this but you bring up those who would only do it for the money. The Deputy who hid in the bushes during the shooting down here is taking a terrible beating. He has been labeled The Coward Of Broward. He has been forced off of the force and now the target is his Sheriff who he says ordered him not to enter.
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Personally, I donāt think it should be a requirement for a teacher, @Sheepdog556. I donāt want to put that responsibility on anyone who doesnāt want it.
I really like this sign at an elementary school:
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I believe teachers who choose to have protection in the classroom should be allowed to but under very strict guidelines. One idea which might already be implemented is the firearm would be in a locked drawer in the teacherās desk and the firearm would also be connected to a holster that is also connected to an alarm. If by chance they need to use their firearm and they pulled a gun out of the holster the alarm will sound throughout the whole school to go on lockdown so nobody can pull the firearm and nobody would know about it. But also the teacher that chooses to have protection should go through training and mental evaluation.
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I agree with Lane. That is a great idea for the teachers.
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I agree with Lane exception being if the gun is in a locked drawer then every kid in school is going to know thereās a gun in a locked drawer in Mr/Mrs Such and Such desk. And theyāre going to break into said drawer to get the gun whenever thereās a disagreement between students. Either carry on your person or donāt carry at all. Get the training plus on-going training or do not volunteer. Everyone stop acting like these kids are so innocent, they are not.
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The locked drawer has an alarm system for that reason. And to let everybody know that the gun was removed and where from.
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