This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/22/us/nra-calls-for-armed-guards-at-schools.html

The article has changed 11 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 4 Version 5
N.R.A. Calls for Armed Guards in Schools to Deter Violence N.R.A. Calls for Armed Guards in Schools to Deter Violence
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association on Friday called for schools to be protected by armed guards as the best way to shield children from gun violence. WASHINGTON — After a weeklong silence since the Connecticut school shootings, the National Rifle Association on Friday called for a program to arm and train guards in schools as the best way to protect children from gun violence. The group blamed video games, the news media and lax law enforcement – but not guns – for a recent rash of mass shootings.
The proposal from the pro-gun lobbying group, long the most vocal and influential organization generally opposing stricter regulation of firearms, came during the N.R.A.'s first organized media event after the deadly shootings in Newtown, Conn. The group also called for steps other than gun control, including cracking down on criminals and fighting violence in the media and on video games. It offered no new proposals to restrict firearms.
Wayne LaPierre, the group’s executive vice president, read a statement to reporters but did not take questions, and ignored outbursts from protesters who interrupted him. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.'s vice president, at a packed media event was interrupted twice by protesters demanding tougher gun controls.
But it was the vehement insistence that the single best line of defense was to put armed guards in schools — and the absence of any openness to various suggestions for new gun control measures — that dominated the event at a downtown hotel not far from the White House. Angry and combative, Mr. LaPierre, who has led the N.R.A.'s operations for two decades, complained that the news media had unfairly “demonized gun owners,” and he called the makers of violent video games “a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.”
Mr. LaPierre said this should be done right away, with the details left to the discretion of local schools. The N.R.A. would provide a template or model program after consulting with security experts. Shock over the Connecticut shootings has spurred wide calls for tighter gun control measures, with even some pro-gun lawmakers aligned with the N.R.A. saying that they were rethinking their positions. With the N.R.A. unusually quiet since the shootings, gun control supporters and opponents had looked to Friday’s event as a sign of how the nation’s largest and best-known gun lobby would respond and whether it would pledge cooperation with the White House and lawmakers seeking new actions.
“The only way — the only way — to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection,” Mr. LaPierre said. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Mr. LaPierre’s defiant tone suggested otherwise. He and David Keene, the group’s president, took no questions from reporters at the event who called out asking whether they planned to work with President Obama.
The N.R.A.'s main answer to school violence was a model program it unveiled called National School Shield, which would train and arm security guards at schools in those local districts that want to use it.
The group said it would pay for a task force to develop details for the model, and named Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas congressman and a strong supporter of the N.R.A., to lead it.
“Assurance of school safety must be restored with a sense of urgency,” Mr. Hutchinson said. The gun group called for schools to arm their security officers immediately.
The idea is not a completely new one. The federal government and local districts have developed programs meant to bolster security at schools — with varying models and mixed results — and the N.R.A. itself has developed safety programs for children and schools in the past and suggested armed guards.
This time, Mr. LaPierre said the N.R.A. would dedicate its resources and expertise to developing the new safety program he announced Friday. He did not say how much money it planned to spend on the effort.
He said that armed security guards at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14 might have stopped the gunman, Adam Lanza, at the outset of his rampage. “Will you at least admit,” Mr. LaPierre said, appealing directly to members of the news media who he said had been unduly skeptical of the N.R.A., “that 26 innocent lives might have been spared that day?”
He added, “The only way — the only way — to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be personally involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection.”
“Why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect the president of our country or our police but bad when it’s used to protect our children in our schools?” he asked. “They’re our kids. They’re our responsibility. And it’s not just our duty to protect them; it’s our right to protect them.”
Gun-free school zones identified by signs, he said, serve only to “tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to effect maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”Gun-free school zones identified by signs, he said, serve only to “tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to effect maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”
“So why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect the president of our country or our police but bad when it’s used to protect our children in our schools?” he continued. “They’re our kids. They’re our responsibility. And it’s not just our duty to protect them; it’s our right to protect them.” Advocates for gun control were unimpressed by the N.R.A.'s announcement, with some critics calling it paranoid and out of step with much of the country.
Criticism of the group’s proposals came quickly. “Anyone who thought the N.R.A. was going to come out today and make a common-sense statement about meaningful reform and safety was kidding themselves,” said Representative Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat who has supported a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition, among other measures.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York issued a statement calling them “a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country.” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who has led calls for tougher gun laws, and helped to pay for them, called the N.R.A.'s response “a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country.”
A statement from Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, said: “It is beyond belief that following the Newtown tragedy, the National Rifle Association’s leaders wants to fill our communities with guns and arm more Americans. The N.R.A. points the finger of blame everywhere and anywhere it can, but they cannot escape the devastating effects of their reckless comments and irresponsible lobbying tactics.” The event Friday, billed as a news conference, was odd both in tone and substance. Rather than offer the type of hedged or carefully calibrated comments that politicians and lobbyists often prefer, Mr. LaPierre let loose with a scorching attack on the N.R.A.'s accusers.
“Everyone agrees our schools, movie theaters shopping malls, streets and communities need to be safer,” said a statement by Representative Mike Thompson, Democrat of California. “But we need a comprehensive approach that goes beyond just arming more people with more guns to make this happen.” He blasted what he called “the political class here in Washington” for pursuing new gun control measures while failing, in his view, to adequately prosecute violations of existing gun laws, pay for law enforcement programs or develop a national registry of mentally ill people who might prove to be “the next Adam Lanza.”
The N.R.A. named Asa Hutchinson, a former congressman and law enforcement official, to lead a task force financed by the group, charging him with devising a model program including what he described as “armed, trained, qualified school security personnel” — perhaps local volunteers. He said ominously that the next mass school shooter was probably already plotting an attack. The only question, he said, is how many more shooters there will be. “A dozen more killers? A hundred more?” Mr. LaPierre said. “How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?”
During the event, which was broadcast live on multiple cable channels and streamed online, protesters repeatedly interrupted, raised a banner saying “NRA killing our children” and shouting similar messages, such as “N.R.A. has blood on its hands” and “ban assault weapons now.” Even while the N.R.A. was offering to help schools better protect themselves, it proved unable to guard its own media event from protesters.
In the days immediately after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the N.R.A. had remained largely silent as pressure mounted for stricter regulations of guns and other measures to confront violence. Reporters had to show media credentials to get in. But two protesters from the group Code Pink sneaked inside, getting seats in the first two rows, and, minutes apart, stood up with large banners in front of Mr. LaPierre and shouted denunciations.
On Tuesday, it scheduled the news conference, saying that it was “prepared to offer meaningful contributions to make sure this never happens again.” But it offered no specifics. “Violence begins with the N.R.A.!” yelled Tighe Barry, a protester from Santa Monica, Calif., as he was forced out of the room by security guards.
At times, Mr. LaPierre’s presentation was confrontational in tone. Mr. Barry would not say afterward how he managed to get into the tightly guarded event. “There’s doors – there’s ways to get in,” he said, smiling.
“You know, five years ago, after the Virginia Tech tragedy, when I said we should put armed security in every school, the media called me crazy,” he said. “But what if, what if when Adam Lanza started shooting his way in the Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, he’d been confronted by qualified armed security? Will you at least admit it’s possible that 26 little kids -- that 26 innocent lives might have been spared that day?”
The authorities say that Mr. Lanza, after killing his mother, killed 20 children and 6 adults at the school before taking his own life.
The N.R.A. has about four million members, and exerts its influence on lawmakers through campaign contributions and by rating their votes on gun-related legislation.
According to polling data released on Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, public attitudes about gun control have shifted only modestly since the Newtown shootings. “Currently, 49 percent say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 42 percent say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns,” the center said. Five months ago, opinion was almost evenly divided on these questions; four years ago, a majority said they favored stricter gun control.
On its Web site, the N.R.A. cites other polling, by Gallup. “Americans are most likely to say that an increased police presence at schools, increased government spending on mental health screening and treatment, and decreased depiction of gun violence in entertainment venues would be effective in preventing mass shootings at schools,” it says. “Americans rate the potential effectiveness of a ban on assault and semiautomatic guns as fourth on a list of six actions Gallup asked about.”