The National Rifle Association held their press conference in response to last week’s shooting at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary school today, where NRA vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre voiced his organization’s desire to put guns in every school in the country.
Really.
I won’t touch on about his complaints about movies and video games (mostly because that’s the subject of next week’s “Weekly Wide Web,”) so let’s focus on this sticky matter of arming every school campus in our great, big ol’ country.
First, from Mr. LaPierre’s speech, with emphasis added:
Now, the National Rifle Association knows there are millions of qualified and active retired police, active, Reserve, and retired military, security professionals, certified firefighters, security professionals, rescue personnel, an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained, qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every single school.
We could deploy them to protect our kids now. We can immediately make America’s schools safer, relying on the brave men and women in America’s police forces. The budgets — and you all know this, everyone in the country knows this — of our local police departments are strained, and the resources are severely limited, but their dedication and courage is second to none. And, they can be deployed right now.
I call on Congress today, to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation. And, to do it now to make sure that blanket safety is in place when our kids return to school in January.
Are you kidding? These are people who can’t figure out how to keep our country from “falling off” of a terrible metaphor for austerity measures—people unwilling to compromise on tax reform for citizens who earn more than $1 million a year. You want them to pass sweeping legislation that would impose an armed guard on every single school campus in the nation, when the federal government (as many on the right like to point out) constitutionally delegated education-related issues to the states? Sure, why not?
Where are you going to get the money to pay these people? Dedicated and courageous they may be, but you’ve got to pay security guards—which is, in all honesty, just what these people will be.
His suggestion for paying for it comes from the supposed cash-cow that is the foreign aid budget, because screw foreigners, right? But when it comes down to it, foreign aid spending is a drop in the bucket (just over 1 percent of our federal budget) compared to defense spending (which accounts for more than 15% of our federal budget). Why not reallocate part of the money dedicated to national defense to, uh, defend citizens?
There’s a fine line here. Government, whether it’s federal, state, or municipal, will want to be involved in these services that will, by some estimates, cost $5.5 billion to implement nationally. That money will have to come from somewhere—not all of these guards will want to volunteer. After all, few things are more patriotic in this country than fighting for adequate compensation.
So, there we are. The NRA wants us to have people with guns in every school (or at least to tear down the signs that read “gun-free zone”) to protect our kids; wants legislators to quickly pass a law to put guards on campuses across the country; and is volunteering to pay for training (but not for the guards).
That’s all well and good. Just don’t forget that even having an armed guard on campus didn’t prevent the Columbine massacre.
This article appears in Dec 20-26, 2012.
…If you have a third grader throwing rocks on the playground…Do you then give every third grader rocks?!?!
I would volunteer. it would not cost a thing. and to the rock thrower. no one is proposing arming children. you are an idiot.
How about Catholic schools ? Nuns with Guns ???
The NRA said it would train the guards for free and there are enough retired people in this nation that would volunteer to work a few hours a month to do the job.
I am a vet and I would volunteer for that.
First of all you can not count on retired police officers or guards working for free. Does anyone really want their children to have to go to learn
in a prisonlike environment? They should not have to live in perpetual fear. When the NRA first announced their upcoming press conference, they implied something meaningful. This is nothing but their usual BS. But it would certainly make the gun manufacturers happy.
Israel solved their school shootings by Radical Moslems by using armed guards why can’t we do the same. They proved it worked.
Let the NRA pay for placing armed guards in our schools. Let them also pay for all the lawsuits that will inevitably happen when situations involving these guards go sour.
100$ tax on each handgun transferred or sold. 150$ tax on every long gun, transferred or sold.
Why not have the armed guards receive both state and federal tax credits for time spent on campus. Set a daily rate using local prevailing wages for law enforcement officers (LEO’s) as the basis of credits. You would have more LEO’s applying to provide security then there are schools available to secure.
Great, just what we need, trigger happy volunteers with guns in schools. Take your pick: massacre or shoot out with collateral damage.
If the NRA likes this idea so much, let’s see them lobby Congress to impose a tax on guns or ammo to pay for it.
I am glad the shooter wasn’t Hispanic otherwise the whole illegal immigration crap would be back in the news. Let’s send Joe Arpaio Sheriffs in to schools to start profiling skinny weird looking whites kids for a change. Strange that all of the crazy shooters have been white.
The author of this news post ask a good question….what’s the cost and
where’s the cash comming from…..this is the prime issue with all of our
education for all our children….the likely answer is in a Voucher System of
a voucher for all of our children…think it, say it, do it.
Some/Many school through out our country already have police and other
forms of protection at our schools…so, an additional step is to stop making
our school a so-called “gun-free-zone” and allow citizens and parents and
teachers to carry. When the potential shooters know that school zones
will no longer be safe for them to do their bad deeds the school zones will
become safer….
Apparently Dredd has a hard time with analogies.