NRA Speaks, Announces New Effort to Protect Schools

In a much anticipated press conference, The National Rifle Association (NRA) announced today the creation of a new program to defend American schoolchildren from the plague of madmen and mass murderers that has manifested in many nations in recent years, in both those with an armed populace and those in which strict gun control measures are enforced.

The NRA press conference was in response to the recent mass murder of 26 people, most of them young children, in Newtown, Connecticut. The shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook elementary school and was committed by a madman who had illegally stolen the guns he used from a relative.

Almost immediately after the Sandy Hook shooting, left-of-center political groups began politicizing the tragedy  in efforts to enact their longstanding policy preferences. The NRA chose to stay silent and release only a brief statement. Mainstream media outlets and Democratic Party political leaders heavily criticized the NRA for staying silent, though many of the same groups and individuals had criticized the NRA for speaking out after the Columbine tragedy, where two young men killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.

Political leaders from the Democratic Party and mainstream news outlets began to immediately call for stricter gun control laws, yet the NRA has called instead for armed security for our nation’s children. Many 2nd Amendment advocates have been quick to point out that Columbine happened during a past era of stricter gun-control measures, and the tragedy at Sandy Hook happened in a controversial gun-free zone which, they say, basically leaves everyone in the zone as sitting ducks for such madmen.

The NRA used today’s press conference to directly challenge the left-of-center and anti-2nd Amendment efforts being proposed by most Democratic Party leaders and a handful of Republican Party leaders.

The head of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, spoke at today’s conference and delivered his organization’s statements. He went further to announce the NRA would lead a national effort to lobby and train professionals to protect America’s schoolchildren.

In a surprise move, LaPierre invited former Congressman Asa Hutchinson to the podium and announced Hutchinson would lead the new NRA effort. The National School Shield Safety Program will be headed by former Congressman Hutchinson, who formerly headed the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

Such an effort was called for by the NRA after the Columbine tragedy, but was not formalized and fell on deaf ears. Now formalized, the program is intended to reach out to lawmakers and ensure professionals are trained and equipped to have each and every US school protected in the future by armed personnel who can stop a mass murderer before numbers of children are killed.

LaPierre stated:

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. With all the foreign aid, the United States spends, with all the money in the US budget, can’t we afford to put a police officer in our schools?”