OKAY, Okla. – Okay Public Schools wants anyone considering harm against students to know armed school staff will “use whatever force is necessary to protect our students.”

District officials erected signs this week warning visitors that some school faculty are armed and dangerous, at least to anyone who’s up to no good, Tulsa World reports.

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“Having a sign in your front yard saying ‘this is a gun-free zone’ just tells the idiots, ‘Come on in,’ because we can’t defend ourselves,” superintendent Charles McMahan said. “(Okay’s) sign might be enough to send somebody down the road looking for some other soft target. If that’s what it does, it’s helping our school district.”

The new signs and school weapon policy is made possible by the Special Reserve School Resource Officer Act approved last year that allows certain people to carry handguns on school property, Bearing Arms reports.

McMahn told KFOR the new policy at Okay schools allows administrators to carry a gun on campus – which is either kept concealed or in a locked box – if they meet specific criteria set by the state and school board.

The superintendent said the law is designed to help small school districts like Okay with limited resources. The district does not have a school to protect the 400 students in the district’s three schools, and only one Wagoner County Sheriff’s deputy for the entire town, News on 6 reports.

“If something were to ever happen and I didn’t try to defend my kids, I couldn’t live with that,” he said. “That’s kind of why we put this in place.”

Four new signs posted around campus read:

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“Please be aware that certain staff members at Okay Public Schools can be legally armed and may use whatever force is necessary to protect our students.”

Bearing Arms pointed out how effective similar policies have been in other places.

“In the 10 years since teachers have been allowed to carry guns in Utah, no fatal K-12 school shootings have occurred,” according to the news site. “In 2013 more than 80 bills were introduced in at least 33 states related to arming teachers or school staff, but only Alabama, Kansas, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas enacted laws affecting public schools, according to a report by the Council of State Governments.”

On the federal level, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey has also introduced H.R. 86 to repeal the Gun-Free School Zone Act that makes it “unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.”

“A bigger federal government can’t solve this problem,” Massey said, according to Bearing Arms. “Weapons bans and gun-free zones are unconstitutional. They do not and cannot prevent criminals or the mentally ill from committing acts of violence, but they often prevent victims of such violence from protecting themselves.”

Parents and guardians of students in Okay seem to agree.

“Our kids need to be safe here on campus because we are such a rural area,” Okay grandmother of three Lucretia Echols told News on 6. “Law enforcement is so far away.”

“If someone wants to come in and start shooting,” said Robert Weller, whose grandson attends Okay Junior High, “someone should be able to interrupt it.”

The Okay district started drafting its firearm policy last summer, and it requires teachers or staff who want to participate to go through a rigorous armed security training and pass several tests each year, according to the news site.

McMahan told News on 6 other Oklahoma superintendents have already contacted him with interest in enacting similar policies.