North Dakota City Seeks AR-15s for School Resource Officers

OREM, UT - FEBRUARY 15: Dordon Brack, aims a semi-automatic AR-15 that is for sale at Good
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Bismarck, North Dakota, is seeking fifteen AR-15 rifles for school resource officers (SROs), and they want to store those guns at the schools, where officers could quickly grab them in the event of an attack.

CNN spoke with Bismarck Police Chief Dave Draovitch about acquiring AR-15 rifles and storing the firearms in safes in the school.

He said, “The SROs (school resource officers) will be the only ones who have access to this equipment.” He added that SROs have rifles and emergency equipment in the car but noted that it is not realistic to expect them to run to the car during an attack, retrieve a rifle, then come back in and stop an attack before someone is hurt or killed.

Draovitch said, “If something happens, they’re not going to have time to go running out to their cars. All we’re trying to do is make it more accessible so they can get to it more quickly.”

Bismarck police are seeking “almost $26,000 in their 2019 budget … to buy the rifles, heavy body armor and bleeding control kits for the city’s nine high schools and middle schools.”

KFYR reports that Bismarck Public Schools safety coordinator Becky LaBella said, “Hopefully we never find ourselves in a situation of an active shooter. But if we do, we really want to make sure that our SRO’s are equipped with the tools that they need to do their job effectively.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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