Should Illinois Teachers Carry Guns At School: Take Patch Survey

ILLINOIS — As school shootings continue to rock the country with alarming frequency, lawmakers, community leaders and parents seek solutions to keep students safe in their classrooms.

One of the more controversial proposals to address safety is arming teachers — an idea that prompts strong reactions by people both for and against giving teachers guns.

Fill out Patch's survey at the bottom of this story to share your views on armed teachers in Illinois schools. By filling out our survey, you are giving Patch permission to publish your responses.

A results story will be shared after the survey closes at noon Monday, July 25. The survey is not meant to be a scientific poll, but it is only designed to give a broad idea of public sentiment.

To Arm Or Not To Arm

Each time a school shooting happens, the idea of arming teachers is often raised, invigorating a nationwide debate over whether the people responsible for teaching students should also be expected to carry firearms to protect them.

It was proposed by former President Donald Trump during a 2018 meeting with survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The National Rifle Association quickly endorsed the idea of weapons in schools, and the Second Amendment Foundation and Gun Owners of America signed on in support, as well.

Gun-control lobbying groups such as Everytown USA, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Giffords Law Center all opposed the idea of arming teachers.

The idea of teachers carrying guns at Illinois schools has been met with mixed response.

In the wake of the Parkland school shooting, a school district in southern Illinois announced it wanted to be the first in the state to arm its teachers. Century School District 100 near Ullin, Illinois, not far from Carbondale, said it was having its attorneys look into whether existing Illinois law would allow its teachers and school staff to carry guns, provided they'd had firearms training.

"We arm our Brinks trucks because we hold value in it," a District 100 school board member told WSIL at the time. "We appoint security to guard our legislators, to guard our movie stars, but yet our most valuable asset in our society are our children, and we do nothing."

Meanwhile, Naperville District 203 board members voted unanimously against a resolution supporting arming teachers — a vote that was backed up by students and parents. "You can't fix gun violence with more guns," one parents said at a school board meeting.

The Naperville Unit Education Association also said it was "categorically opposed to arming and asking teachers and staff to carry firearms in our school and in our classrooms."

Leaders from the Chicago Teachers Union and other districts also spoke out against proposals to arm teachers in the days following the Parkland shooting, and the president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers called the idea "insanity," according to the Chicago Tribune.

When he ran for governor in 2018, current Gov. J.B. Pritzker also rejected the idea of giving teachers guns, saying, "There’s so much that we need to do, but it’s not arming teachers in classrooms, or getting rid of gun-free zones around schools."

Military veterans have also spoken out against proposals to give teachers guns.

A new Politico/Morning Consult Poll taken after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting in which 19 children and two teachers were killed found that while a majority of Americans strongly support more restrictions on gun ownership, 54 percent think teachers and other staff should be equipped with concealed firearms.

In 2017, a year before the Parkland shooting, a Pew Research Center survey found 55 percent of U.S. adults opposed allowing teachers and other school officials to carry guns in K-12 schools, while 45 percent said they favored allowing teachers to carry guns in their classrooms.

Education Week, an independent news site that covers education, tracked 27 school shootings from Jan. 1 to May 31 in which 27 people were killed, 24 of them students or other children, and 53 people were injured.

Education Week defines a school shooting as one in which a firearm was discharged on a K-12 school property or bus while school is in session or during a school-sponsored event, injuring at least one person other than the perpetrator. These do not include incidents involving armed school resource officers. In 2021, there were 34 school shootings meeting the criteria, compared with 10 in 2020 and 24 each in 2019 and 2018.

Share Your Opinion

Do you think teachers or other school employees should be allowed to carry guns on campus to protect students and others against a potential threat? Let us know in the survey below. Your responses could be used for a follow-up story.

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