On April 28, the District 65 School Board approved a letter to be sent to legislators asking that concealed weapons not be allowed on school property, even if “properly stowed” in a vehicle. The letter says that, while Section 65(a)(1) of the Illinois Concealed Carry Act “rightly prohibits firearms on school property, including school parking lots,” subsection (b) “unreasonably qualifies” that prohibition by allowing concealed weapons, if property stored, to be brought into school parking lots. Section 65, the letter says, thus “does not go far enough to enable us to ensure the maximum safety of our approximately 7,500 students and 1,000 employees.”
The section of the law allowing concealed weapons, properly stored in vehicles, on school property, “runs counter to all that we and several other school districts understood the law to represent,” the letter says, and “completely contradicts the creation and enforcement” of school safe zones, which were created by the legislature in 2012. That section of the law “even with the protection [of proper storage], jeopardizes our ability to do this,” according to the letter.
The letter asks the legislators to “amend subsection (b) to extend the complete prohibition of firearms on all public and private school property, including school parking lots.”
On a different front, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to a New Jersey law regarding concealed weapons. That law, which was upheld by a federal appeals court, mandates that anyone who applies for a license to carry a concealed weapon must demonstrate a “justifiable need” to do so.