After taking SIG SAUER’s Active Shooter Response Instructor class (click here for my report) I fully agree with Plainfield Police Chief John Konopek: an AR-15 style rifle is best for eliminating a spree killer inside a school. For all the reasons the Chief shared with the Huffington Post: greater range, accuracy and stopping power. OK, maybe not stopping power; a .45 handgun or shotgun would be my choice for puttingthebadguydownosity. As for the Chief’s desire to store ARs at four local schools, I think it’s more a matter of not scaring the horses than practicality. How would parents and students react if they saw police officers assigned to a school walking around with ARs? Of course, an active shooter might think twice in that situation, as he would if parents and teachers were “allowed” to exercise their right to keep and bear arms inside school property.
….or just let a few teachers carry concealed. Let everyone know that a few teachers are carrying, but don’t let anyone know who. Frankly, I trust teachers a hell of a lot more than I trust cops.
a cautious +1
Amen!!! I too would trust the teacher a lot more than the police!!!! Having every other teacher licensed to carry concealed would definitely be better!!!
Heck why not just let the teachers open carry on school grounds!!! Maybe then the Bad Guys would stop and think before shooting up a school full of kids again!!! Yea I know someone is goin to say that open carry makes you the first target but the schools can and should have a way to prevent kids from bringing weapons to school!!!
It might be an invasion of privacy to an extent but would rather piss off one kid and a couple of parents instead of attending another kids funeral!!!!!
Open carry in a school shooter senario scares me because then the shooter would know who is a potential threat and where they need to be neutralized. They’d also be able to leave weapons caches within the school and wait for certain teachers to be absent.
Keep in mind these people tend to be of above average intelligence and very good planners; most of them dedicate months of advance planning before acting. They also tend to be cowards, as most predators do. The threat of any and all faculty members might prove a daunting enough threat for them to reconsider.
Just a thought.
I would have to disagree. A teacher, who spends 8+ hours a day with these students, would likely hesitate to fire on one of these students if they were the shooter. If it were an outsider…adult shooter, then I would trust them to eliminate the threat.
The control freaks bleat about how they only want trained professionals to carry firearms. In this case, that’s exactly what we have. In a school, there’s a group of people who have college degrees, often more than that, who have had their backgrounds checked thoroughly, and who know the student body in detail: the teachers. Add in the training required to have a carry license–Illinois would have to allow carry, and what a shame that would be…–and we have a solution.
@speedracer
Does your keyboard not a have a period?
@everyone else:
I’d love to “see” teachers carrying concealed (get it?). In an active shooter scenario, events move very quickly, and taking out the shooter and stopping the death toll is paramount. The police have the benefits of recognizability in uniform and familiarity with real life emergency SHTF situations. Teachers and legally armed adults can be everywhere, and have a faster response time. So let’s have both. That’s what I advocate.
FLAME DELETED
Yea it does but IPhone small keyboard + fat fingers = bad typing. Wear a size 12 ring. Sorry. Nope caffeine makes me sleepy, not jittery or hyper.
Open carry in a proper retention holster would be fine I think.
Having used both IWB and AWB holsters seems like in a active shooter scenario the half second difference in drawing from an AWB might make the difference needed to stop or distract the perp. As far as Arkansas being concealed carry state it should be legal for licensed ccw carry on school grounds while picking up or dropping off students but unfortumately it isn’t allowed. Maybe one day.
@ speedracer
I didn’t mean to offend. My posts on an iPhone get jacked up all the time, and I wear a 9 1/2 ring…
You want them to open carry around hundreds of grabby little hands, many of which would love to get the gatt? Are you nuts?
Teachers are supposed to be worrying about lesson plans, not gun retention.
I have no problem with teachers who want to conceal-carry doing so (though maybe a few hours of extra training on issues specific to carry in schools), but you certainly can’t require them to do so)
As an LEO, I’ve done community relations / job fairs / coloring book giveaways at schools in SoCal. (Yes, I can be nice and polite)
Two things:
1. You’re highly polished boots will be trampled by little feet.
2. Kids will be awed by your gun. And they’ll want to touch it. Badly. So you can plan on fidgeting away from little hands and re-polishing your boots. Once some jerk brings in the police dog, they’ll ignore you soon enough.
I was never taught gun retention against 5 year olds in the academy, and they’re easily the grabbiest. What gives?
Living and growing up in Illinois, I wouldn’t trust the teachers at all.
They’re in the business of making money, not giving kids an education. Most teachers in NE Illinois make WAAAAY to much money.
Second off… holy crap, Illinois cops wanting AR-15s in a school zone?! Say it isn’t so!
Why not just skip the middleman and start hiring armed prison guards for the city schools?
Zero tolerance, lockdowns, principals (wardens), guards, crap food, mandatory attendance, authority figures sometimes engaging in corruption and rape as well as turning a blind eye to the violent criminal behavior of privileged students.
I could go on.
Your description sounds very much like urban schools today – except the violent criminal behavior is not by just the privileged students, but by the majority of the students. Plus a culture of stupidity, where academic achievement is punished by the other students.
This helps explain the increasing popularity of homeschooling and Catholic schools for parents who actually care about their kids’ education.
Typical. Cops are already allowed to have guns on school grounds, but those “regular folks” can’t, even if they’ve proven to be good, law abiding, cc’ers.
Now they want rifles? For spree killers? An individual is more likely to be killed by a cop than a “spree killer”.
Only portion I would argue with is .45 handgun having more stopping power than an AR. “Pistols are pistols… Rifles are rifles.” Another benefit of a 5.56 rifle is its ability to defeat the possible body armor of an assailant. 5.56 at close range is devasting to flesh.
“For all the reasons the Chief shared with the Huffington Post: greater range, accuracy and stopping power. OK, not stopping power; a .45 handgun or shotgun’s got an AR well and truly beat in sheer of sheer puttingthebadguydownosity.”
What about an AR with a .450 Bushmaster, .458 SOCOM, or .500 Beowulf upper?
law abiding citizens should be able to carry almost anywhere. limit guns in courthouses and other sensitive government buildings. schools should not be gun free zones. i have no problem with the rank and file cops with ar’s. but citizens should be able to purchase the same rifles as the cops.
“How would parents and students react if they saw police officers assigned to a school walking around with ARs?”
from the link:
“keep an AR 15 semi-automatic rifle under lock and key in school offices so they are better prepared to handle school shootings, if the situation were to arise. School officers will be the only ones able to access the weapons”
They won’t as a matter of routine be walking around with AR-15s. I think they’d be fine with officers having access to the tools ie firepower to hopefully defend them if a shootout occurred.
Maybe I just went to school with a lot of criminals and proto-criminals, but they better use some damned good locks, and hide the location well.
Help me understand: so Po-Po wants to store rifles at the school but how are they getting to them in the event of a spree killer? Run from wherever they are, run to the weapons store, grab a rifle and then run back? Really? Why not just arm Po-Po with more ammo and more powerful rounds ?
Not sure if serious about 45 ACP being ballistically superior to 5.56. It is not. Not even close and please don’t bring up bullet diameter. In that case it would be superior to 7.62 NATO as well. As we all know it is not. Please stop the foolishness.
I think he was joking.
What? But I thought Chicago was SAFE with all Mayor Rahm’s anti gun laws???? (sarcasm)
I don’t think there would be enough time for a cop to run over to the office and unlock the gun, before the killer has finished shooting. If they really need a rifle, the cop should be carrying one at all times. In a spree shooting situation: time wasted=lives lost.
My high school history/government teacher packed a 1911 that he bought during his military service. He felt it was his duty to defend his students. I only learned that he carried after I graduated. I think anyone who could legally carry should.
Plainfield cops are not Chicago cops…..this school/town is 20 minutes from where I reside and we are nothing like Cook County.
Robert:
Plainfield is not Chicago. It’s a southwest suburb. It’s not even in Cook County. Only those of us who grew up within the city limits are from Chicago.
“greater range, accuracy and stopping power. OK, maybe not stopping power; a .45 handgun or shotgun would be my choice for puttingthebadguydownosity.”
I dont agree. The AR15 has a unique advantage in that it has less of a chance of overpenetration than even a 9mm and 45…and definitely a shotgun. When equipped with adequate ammunition, it is also very effective against human targets, more so than a 45.
and school grounds tend to have more open spaces where a rifle may be useful for it’s range and accuracy. i support leo’s for the most part, but a lot of them are not the best pistol shot.
The solution to over penetrating with a shotgun is #4 turkey shot. It’s large enough to neutralize a bad guy but won’t penetrate walls. The 5.56 round may not penetrate brick but it will penetrate drywall like it wasn’t there. I would go with a pistol caliber carbine in 45 caliber over a 5.56 in the confines of a building.
tdiinva, you make valid points. but the high school my wife works at is a typical ca high school. large and sprawling. some of the buildings are large enough to streatch the shot on antthing pistol caliber. add the stadium into the mix and if i was going to let cops carry long guns here it would be the rifle caliber. the school resource officer at her school has an ar in the rack in his cruiser.
9mm and likely .45 ACP will penetrate more drywall than a 5.56 HP round.
I would say have a mandatory 50% staff member concealed carry. Sure lock up the rifles, but those are not for the cops but for the teachers to get to in case of an emergency. I am not saying teachers are perfect. Cops aren’t perfect either but when seconds count, I don’t mind having trained faculty on hand to deal with any situation.
Like training should have taught you there is no perfect situation. there are no perfect answers, only the best one you have and you have to take that right now, because sitting around debating means you and others will die.
I think this idea was discussed in regard to the Aurora shooting. Could there be collateral damage, yes, but saving everyone else out weighs the possibility of one or two bystanders getting hit. It is cold and heartless I know, but it is the only rational choice.
The type of gun to be used is irrelevent. The very fact that we’re discussing this shows how flawed our school system has become and how bad our society has gotten.
ten 4 on that comment sir
In my area of SE Texas, all the school cops have quick access to AR-15 rifles. A sign of the times, and I’m glad they got ’em.
as a pro gunner of course i would agree with the “more guns more protection” BUT they are already carrying side arms. what i also feel like they are saying by ” the AR’s are more accurate”, is that they couldn’t hit the side of a barn with the gun they already have. like i said JUST MY OPINION, every one’s got one so there.
in the end if they can not establish a level of security with there primary side arms then they are not doing their job correctly. a good caliber long barreled and center mass aimed side arm should be enough …i mean there pint size targets any how( no offense).
ultimately there is no proper way from keeping this new age generation of kids from harming one another.
@Accur81…no offense taken!!!! Guess part of the time I spent in the Army as a platform Instructor is still with me, just didn’t realize it!! LOL. Everything we did, wrote, and said was exclamated so to speak since we were training new recruits for wartime. Taught Infantry tactics and US and Foreign Weapons for 2 yrs before getting a free trip to the desert myself. What a prize!!! LOL!!
Thanks for the reminder tho. Some old habits are hard to break sometimes.
As far as teachers doing open carry yes if the proper holster is used. Although I prefer leather over kydex myself there are some damn good retention holsters in both kydex and leather available and I would imagine the school board could get a good discount for a bulk buy of holsters. I know how grabby little one’s can be. My stepdaughter is 11 but very conscious of loaded firearms and I have 5 grand kids ranging in age from 11 months to 10 yrs old. Teach your kids early and wisely an it will take effect more than you realize.
Brief the school kids and the parents, listen to their suggestions and concerns and then carry your sidearm, be a good teacher and educate and protect the children.
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