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N.R.A. Calls for Armed Guards in Schools, but No Gun Curbs N.R.A. Calls for Armed Guards in Schools, but No Gun Curbs
(about 4 hours later)
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. WASHINGTON — After a weeklong silence, the National Rifle Association announced Friday that it wants to arm security officers at every school in the country, implicating violent video games, the news media and lax law enforcement as being far more to blame for the recent rash of mass shootings than guns.
It offered no new proposals to restrict firearms. “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. vice president, said at a media event that was interrupted by protesters. One held up a banner saying, “N.R.A. Killing Our Kids.”
“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. The N.R.A.’s plan for countering school shootings, coming a week after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was met with widespread derision from school administrators, law enforcement officials and politicians, with some critics calling it “delusional” and “paranoid.” Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, said arming schools would not make them safer.
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.” Even conservative politicians who had voiced support this week for arming more school officers did not rush to embrace the N.R.A.’s plan.
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. Their reluctance was an indication of just how toxic the gun debate has become after the Connecticut shootings, as gun control advocates push for tougher restrictions.
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. Nationwide, at least 23,000 schools — about one-third of all public schools — already had armed security on staff as of the most recent data, for the 2009-10 school year, and a number of states and districts that do not use them have begun discussing the idea in recent days.
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. Even so, the N. R. A’s focus on armed guards as its prime solution to school shootings — and the group’s offer to help develop and implement such a program nationwide — rankled a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
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. “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 called for new restrictions on assault rifles.
“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. Mr. LaPierre struck a defiant tone Friday, making clear that his group was not eager to reach a conciliation. With the N.R.A. not making any statements after last week’s shootings, both supporters and opponents of greater gun control had been looking to its announcement Friday as a sign of how the nation’s most influential gun lobby group would respond and whether it would pledge to work with President Obama and Congress in developing new gun control measures.
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. Mr. LaPierre offered no support for any of the various proposals made in the last week, like banning assault rifles or limiting high-capacity ammunition, and N.R.A. leaders declined to answer questions. As reporters shouted out to Mr. LaPierre and David Keene, the group’s president, asking whether they planned to work with Mr. Obama, the men walked off stage without answering.
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. Mr. LaPierre seemed to anticipate the negative reaction in an address that was often angry and combative.
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?” “Now I can imagine the headlines — the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow,” he told more than 150 journalists at a downtown hotel several blocks from the White House.
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.” “More guns, you’ll claim, are the N.R.A.’s answer to everything,” he said. “Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the gun automatically become a bad word?”
“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.” Mr. LaPierre said his organization would fund and develop a program called the National Model School Shield Program, to work with schools to arm and train school guards, including retired police officers and volunteers. The gun rights group named Asa Hutchinson, a former Republican congressman from Arkansas who has been a strong supporter, to lead a task force to develop the program.
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.” Mr. LaPierre also said that before Congress moved to pass any new gun restrictions, it should “act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation” by the time students return from winter break in January.
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. The idea of arming school security officers is not altogether new. Districts in cities including Albuquerque, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami and St. Louis have armed officers in schools, either through relationships with local police departments or by training and recruiting their own staff members.
“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. A federal program dating back to the Clinton administration also uses armed police officers in school districts to bolster security, and Mr. LaPierre himself talked about beefing up the number of armed officers on campuses after the deadly shootings in 2007 at Virginia Tech.
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.” But what the N.R.A. proposed would expand the use of armed officers nationwide and make greater use of not just police officers, but armed volunteers — including retired police officers and reservists — to patrol school grounds. The organization offered no estimates of the cost.
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. Mr. LaPierre said that if armed security officers had been used at the Newtown school, “26 innocent lives might have been spared that day.”
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 news conference was an unusual Washington event both in tone and substance, as Mr. LaPierre avoided the hedged, carefully calibrated language that political figures usually prefer, and instead let loose with a torrid attack on the N.R.A.’s accusers.
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?” 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, fund law enforcement programs or develop a national registry of mentally ill people who might prove to be “the next Adam Lanza,” the gunman in Newtown.
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. Mr. LaPierre also 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,” as he showed a video of an online cartoon game called “Kindergarten Killer.”
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. While some superintendents and parents interviewed after the N.R.A.’s briefing said they might support an increased police presence on school campuses as part of a broader safety strategy, many educators, politicians, and crime experts described it as foolhardy and potentially dangerous. Law enforcement officials said putting armed officers in the nation’s 99,000 schools was unrealistic because of the enormous cost and manpower needed.
“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 a news conference Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is leading an effort to reinstitute a ban on assault rifles, read aloud from a police report on the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, which detailed an armed officer’s unsuccessful attempts to disarm one of the shooters.
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. “There were two armed law enforcement officers at that campus, and you see what happened — 15 dead,” Ms. Feinstein said.
“Does every law office have to have security? Every business?” she added. “Is this the answer? That America should become an armed camp? I don’t think so.”
Officials in some districts that use armed security officers stressed that it was only part of a broader strategy aimed at reducing the risk of violence on their campuses.
“I think most people would have a sense of security knowing that you have well-trained law enforcement officials within the school,” said Ben Kiser, superintendent of schools in Gloucester County, Va., where the district already has four police officers assigned to patrol schools.
But he said it was just as important to provide mental health services and have counselors and other staff members to help children and families struggling with social and emotional issues.
“What I’m afraid of,” said Mr. Kiser, who is also president of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents, “is that we’re often quick to find that one perceived panacea and that’s where we spend our focus.”
In Newtown, Conn., the N.R.A.’s call for arming school guards generated considerable debate among parents and local residents Friday — much of it negative.
Suzy DeYoung, a parenting coach who has one child in the local school system, said she thought many parents in town and around the country would object to bringing more guns onto school campuses in response to last week’s shootings.
“I think people are smarter than that,” she said.

Reporting was contributed by John H. Cushman Jr., Serge F. Kovaleski, Richard Pérez-Peña and Jeremy W. Peters.