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Subscribe to RSSFour high schools in an Illinois school district could get some firepower for added protection if the Police Department has its way.
Police in Plainfield, a town of 37,000 about 40 miles southwest of Chicago, asked the district to install locked gun safes to keep a rifle and important information at several schools in the event there's a shooter on campus, according to Plainfield School District 202.
The safe could include a "long gun, such as an AR 15 rifle," according to the request, and would be stored in the offices of school police officers, who would be the only ones with access.
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The request was made for Plainfield Central Campus, Plainfield East, Plainfield North and Plainfield Academy. Plainfield South High School was not be included.
"Unfortunately, in today’s society active shooter incidents are no longer something we see on TV," Police Chief John Konopek said in a statement. "They are reality."
Plainfield hasn't experienced a campus shooting, and Konopek said he wants to keep it that way.
"We have found, through our training, officers are much better equipped to handle this type of incident utilizing a long gun … rather than a handgun," he said.
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The school board has not yet voted on the request. A committee is set to review it Sept. 19.
The debate over how to best protect students and staff in the nation's schools has increased in the last few years.
"A lot of (school) boards don't even want police with guns on campus," Peter Pochowski of the National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officials, told NBC News.
Pochowski said he's not aware of any other school in the nation at which police use safes for gun storage on campus.
One Texas school district allows teachers and staff members to bring guns in order to deter and protect against school shootings.
The Harrold Independent School District approved the measure in 2008 partly because of the 30-minute drive it would take for police to respond to emergencies on school grounds. The district has only one school, with all students attending class in the same building.
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Leave a Comment:
Assault rifle, not a long gun, love how they use different words.
It's an assault rifle if a civilian has it, according to the media.
Big Difference between the "Assault Rifle" and a "Assault-Style Rifle"....The AR-15 I can buy at the Gun Shop just "looks" military...I still have to pull the trigger each time to fire the weapon....The Media loves to portray them as Fully Automatic Weapons although they are probably so gun stupid they can't even process the difference....
Funny this is in Illinois....the last holdout denying it's residents the right to defend themselves....but make sure the School Office Staff is protected....How about letting qualified Adults, some of them might even be teachers, Carry Concealed....How many kids would have to die before the Hall Monitor made it to the Office, unlocked the safe, loaded the weapon and got to the part of the school were the murderous mayhem was occurring ???
And you can make then "fully automatic" in less that 5 minutes.
Sure, you can commit that particular felony pretty quickly (longer than 5 mins) if you have the experience and proper tools to do it without rendering the gun either unsafe or a 8 pound turd. It takes a little more than "file down the sear hur hur"
dave-sunny so.cal, sorry but Rhep is correct unless you are a good machinist and gunsmith it take more then just filing down a part. I guess you watched one to many movies. Hate to tell you this if YOU see it in a movie 99.99% YOU CANT DO IT IN REAL LIFE.
Dave, you watch too much TV.
Zero tolerance for guns on school property, that would, I presume, include gun safes. What are you people thinking??? Really, just asking.
Criminals DO love gun free zones..........
Yep Da doc its the first place they go to since they know ITS GUN FREE and they will have the only weapon for the first 10 to 30 min.
Gun safe? In a high school? So who has the key? Wow. Dosen't matter my kid is not going. This is not the solution. We are moving to Canada, tomorrow. My kids are raised but just sayin.
BTW if this is Obama's hope for the future...this is INSANE! I have seen Nam, Iraq, and have a son in Afghan...this is INSANE!
Good, See ya!
BobW-3215303: Obviously you did not get past the title to the article. Got a great idea HOW ABOUT YOU READ THE ARTICLE and you might have read this:
The safe could include a "long gun, such as an AR 15 rifle," according to the request, and would be stored in the offices of school police officers, who would be the only ones with access.
O **** its the answer to your QUESTION how about that sunshine.........
I predict that requiring students to have their guns put into safes during school hours will undoubtedly have the goofballs at the NRA claiming it a violation of both the 2nd AND 1st Amendments. After all, doesn't the old saying go that "guns speak louder than words"?
Maybe you should READ the article before you rant about the NRA.
Rhep welcome to the world of LIBERALS, they read the title and that's about it and theses people VOTE. Kinda scary is it not?
This isn't necessary. Just let TSA search them upon entering the school. After a few thousand strip searches, contraband brought into the school should drop off.
Is everything old new again? Or , it is time to revive Gun Smoke as a series. I thought the Wild Wild West was just that...wild. High Noon shoot outs. Mobs...oh welllll
Don't like guns? Don't have one.
Violence begets violence! More guns will never make us into a safer nation. Only less guns will. There will never be a time that there will never be hostilities, but fist fights are rarely fatal! Handguns and fully automatic weapons were never designed for hunting animals. They were designed for hunting humans. Until we decrease the number of these weapons, the useless killing shall continue.
Crime has been on the decline since about 1994, while just about anyone would admit that the number of guns in our country has gone up.
break into my house in the middle of the night,im too tired for a fistfight.
Yes. Let's put guns in the schools, that way the students don't have to bring their own.
I brought my long gun to school almost every day since Junior High. I used to ride to school every day with my pump-action shotgun across the handlebars of my bicycle, and then store it in my locker, so that me and my friends could go shooting in the field behind the school when we got out.
My, how the hoplophobes have changed things...
I realize there may be some trolls on here that are paid per post, but come on guys. Earn that nickel and read the article so you don't sound afflicted with the dumbass.
Regretably, I have to support this police chief's request to store a locked AR-15 for his resource officer's use in case of an active shooter. Until congress grows a backbone and restricts semi-auto rifles that can hold 100 round magazines, these measures are necessary.
Attacking the U.S. Constitution is not "growing a backbone".
From the looks of some of the comments, the knee-jerk lib-tards didn't even read the article.
The article is about a gun safe in the office of the police officer who is stationed at the school, to give that officer a place to store his long gun.
The alternative would be for the officer to have to run to his patrol car to get his long gun first, while some deranged orange-haired LGBT-activist Democrat is gunning down your children as fast as he can.
My, how times have changed.
When my mother was in high school back in the '50s, the schools GAVE children guns and ammunition- my mom was the captain of her high school rifle team.
When I was in school, my buddies and I used to ride our bicycles to our Junior High School with our shotguns across the handlebars of our bicycles. We'd stick them in our lockers, so that we could go shooting out behind the school after class.
Today, if a kid even MENTIONS a firearm, the school goes into lockdown, they call 9-1-1, and the kid gets expelled for life.
And school violence continues to escalate out of control.