Vigo County School Corporation officials are pushing for legislation that cracks down on kids who bring fake guns to schools.
VCSC Director of Communications Bill Riley says they’ve already seen one or two incidents involving fake guns, and students have been back in school for only a month and a half.
“It’s a problem that we’ve identified, and we’re, I think, hoping that our state legislature might take action to keep our kids safe,” Riley says.
Riley says VCSC officials are in preliminary talks with lawmakers, including former state senator Tim Skinner and Indiana Sheriffs’ Association Vice President David Reynolds, to strengthen laws around fake guns in schools.
He says the fake guns that kids bring to school can look shockingly real.
“One looked almost like the gun our coordinator of school safety, Travis Chesshir, carries – a Smith & Wesson pistol,” he says.
That confusion, he says, could lead to unnecessary and traumatic consequences when armed school protection officers respond to what they think is an incident involving a real gun.
Riley says the effort isn’t so much about penalizing students as it is about making sure that instances of all guns in schools –real or fake – are taken seriously.
