Only ‘A Good Guy With A Gun’ Can Stop School Shootings, NRA Says
Saying that last week’s mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., could have been prevented or stopped if there had been armed, trained security personnel on site, officials of the National Rifle Association on Friday called for Congress to appropriate funds to put police officers in every American school.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” 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 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.
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.
It was the organization’s first lengthy response to the attack that left 20 school children and six adults dead at Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has reignited a national debate over whether gun laws need to be tightened. LaPierre and others who spoke gave no indication they favor any such actions.


