Posted on 12/21/2012 9:27:58 AM PST by Red Steel
National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre on Friday dismissed calls for increased gun control in response to the Connecticut school shooting, calling instead for Congress to support a plan putting armed police officers in "every single school" in America.
In an impassioned speech, marking the NRA's first in-depth public comments since the Newtown tragedy, LaPierre pointed the finger not at gun proliferation but violent video games, the media and the absence of armed guards at schools.
He argued that if banks and members of Congress can have protection, schools across America should be afforded the same security.
"It's now time for us to assume responsibly for our schools," he said. "The only way to stop a monster from killing our kids is to be permanently involved and invested in a plan of absolute protection."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Like!
Good for him. At least somebody in this country has some balls.
I’m glad someone had the guts to say it.
Gun free zones don’t work. Let’s protect our children!
Whoa whoa whoa! Wait a minute here..If you put armed guards in schools, there’s a possibility lives could be saved. Let’s think about this now before we make any rash decisions. Is this what we really want? An armed guard around school children? What if a psychotic killer with an M-16 came into the school blasting away and the armed guard took him out before the psycho killed anyone? Do you people have any idea what that would entail? Lives would be saved! Then what? We would have all these living school children on our hands! No no no no, armed guards must be banned immediately!
He is right
Why guard our money and not our kids?
A national plan of failure.
The NRA would be far more effective leaning on the states to allow school employees to be armed.
... “The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” -— NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre
Typical police state solution. More and more taxes will be bled from us to pay for an “ESA” — Education Security Administration.
Instead we should not infringe upon the rights of teachers and school administrators to carry weapons, if they so choose.
That SURRENDER MONKEY John Boehner should take some lessons on testicular development from the NRA.
a free grope with every backpack search.
my school district spends $2million/annually (20 teachers at an average of $100K per year) to teach ESL- english as a second language....basically teaching the children of criminals how to speak English and making me pay for it....so why not cut back on the ESL’s and pay for security of the taxpayers kids???
“Gun Free Zones” like schools should post signs stating:
Target Rich Environment Inside and We Don’t Shoot Back
Same thought, different wording.
He is right on the money.
The NRA sent me a letter asking me to join. I think I now will.
You mean to tell me you’re willing to risk the untold emotional trauma, stress disorders, and possible brain tumors that could be caused by children seeing armed security people (possibly even their own mothers) in their school?!?!?!?!?
Hypocrites all. F em.
I would just as soon opt out of public ed altogether.
BUT, we can use lefty rhetoric very easily on this issue.
“Banks use armed guards to protect their valued assets. Aren’t our children as valuable as the money in those banks?”
This is a LOCAL issue.
Then schools will be just like the airport security line, with union goons swaggering around like mini Mussolinis.
A far better result would come from putting a priest, minister and rabbi in each school.
Exactly. Not sure if his plan is workable...but at least he went on offense. I especially like the part where he brought up Congress' protection by armed guards.
I know at my kids' school, they already have 3-4 security guards on campus at a time. I also know that at least 2 of them were in the military. Arming these guys or various other faculty members would be a much easier plan to implement.
Stupid.
Use the power of free enterprise. Any teacher with a CCW gets an extra $50 per week if they bring their weapon to school.
IN addition, these individuals must attend regular classes (i.e. range time!) on “teachers days” with the cops on marksmanship, armed response, etc. School district will pay the expense, trainers must document performance. Poor performance is grounds for rescinding pay.
IF an incident occurs, and they are called on to defend the student body, they get paid $1000; if the bring down any of the shooters, they get $10,000 per head.
Listen, I can’t recall a single teacher that I had at anytime that was intimidating, could be intimidating, had the presence of someone who could and would kill you on the spot or anything of the sort.
If you want school kids to not be murdered, then defend them like you want them not to be murdered. Don’t half ass it and expect that will be enough, because it won’t be enough.
If you would prefer to keep your money, then keep your money and know that kids will be murdered in schools and the government will take our guns as a result.
Choose wisely.
Good grief. First of all, they are not "our kids," Mr. LaPierre; they are MY kids, your kids, and kids belonging to other parents. Cut the collectivist language and use your brain. Are you suggesting that we turn schools into armed camps that can refuse releasing their defenseless hostages back to their parents? Hell, we've got one school here in California that is installing high security fences with only ONE exit.
Until we can rid ourselves of the 19th Century factory model of education entirely, why isn't Mr. LaPierre advocating getting rid of "gun free zones" in schools and instituting free teacher training in the proper use of firearms and maybe even a foundation to supply them. Isn't that what the NRA is supposedly set up to do?
The left loves to shout that prohibition didn’t work so legalize “xyz” (insert special interest).
Obviously, Gun Prohibition in public is not working and it is TIME TO END GUN PROHIBITION.
The problem is, most of them are liberal and will want nothing to do with that idea.
Sounds like a federal program. Which means it'll go wrong; metastasize; waste money; get some people ruined, jailed, killed; erode liberty...
If they cannot keep drugs out of the country, they will never keep guns out of the country. Progresso's need to start dealing with the truth for a change. Put down the crack pipe and forget the fantasy utopian world.
I like your idea.
Why expand Government?
This is a good start by the NRA.
But we need to make the case that an armed police officer is no different than any other citizen who has had approved training.
We should give schools the option of either hiring an armed security officer who is trained and certified AND/OR allowing any teachers who want to carry to undergo training and certification in order to carry.
Personally, I think it would be a huge safety advantage if an unknown number of teachers carried. It would be very difficult for an attacker to know who is armed and would make the potential target far less attractive to the evil and the criminal.
We know how unions work, so how many union workers will be
needed to fill each position?
This sounds like a screwing in a light bulb joke.
And we allow those demented child- and granny-gropers in the TSA to carry firearms, but not a principal, not a teacher, either of whom can be trained and certified and can become as safe and reliable in the use of a firearm as any police officer.
Agreed, but the gun-grabbers’ push for national action should be resisted with a sensible program that is also national.
Wayne just got me to renew my and my wife’s membership for another 3 years.
LLS
We don’t have a gun problem. We have a crazy person problem. If they can’t use guns, they will find another way to mass murder.
You bring up a very good point, and one that was going through my mind all throughout those part of LaPierre’s speech that I heard. What happens with these public statements is that the NRA (or whomever) is put on the defensive once again and is forced to repeat the same basic
commonsensical talking points its been defensively defending itself with for decades. Good as his speech was, one on level
what he’s doing is providing this Administration with a blueprint they will take credit for, as they assure us it’s all being implemented over time.Whatever long-range gun-grabbing designs this Administration HAD for legal gun-owners, it STILL HAS, and those will not be altered or streamlined one degree. The tension between Federal control and State control, as you point out is the “big story” going forward. As we all know,
the current Feds want EVERYTHING to be federalized, and they
won’t surrender that power anytime soon. La Pierre rightly pointed out that this Administration had ALREADY de-funded a few bills that would’ve made school security a lot tougher than it is now. I cannot believe that the Administration appreciated this one bit, and the first idiot surrogate statement demagoguing La Pierre and his speech has already been issued by the idiot surrogate Frank Lautenberg.
Here’s the transcript of the NRA press release.
http://home.nra.org/pdf/Transcript_PDF.pdf
Remember when Clinton was lauded for putting 100,000 cops on the streets. 25 years later and putting more cops out there is "reckless", according to the Laut.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., in a statement after the press conference, called LaPierre's plan "reckless."
"It is beyond belief that following the Newtown tragedy, the National Rifle Association's leaders want to fill our communities with guns and arm more Americans," he said.
Yes. Its stupid to even say it - it only plays into the hands of the gun-control politicians and their emotional supporters. Schools do NOT need armed guards. The chance of a Newton-style attack killing an average American child is probably less than their chance of getting struck by lightening twice in the same day.
The only thing worse than the democrats laughing at the plan is the democrats actually implementing it.
I grew up in gun heavy rural Michigan and could even bring guns to school for afternoon hunting into t5he 1980s and there was never a shooting. I’m guessing there was no prohibition against school employees carrying either.
The simple fact is that the answers are in the past, not the future.
Appearances can be deceiving. Your experiences are not necessarily mine or others.
If some liberal state wants to tax its citizens into oblivion to pay for this monstrosity, let them. Other states can try other solutions.
Mass shooters are cowards. They don't want any opposition. They commit suicide when they discover rescue personnel on their way. The "possibility" of an armed teacher or admin will be enough to discourage most of the crazies. (See Lott & Landis study on Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws)
Sorry but we’re being played on this.
The solution is not another armed union leo (local, TSA, whatever) at the government school. Who everyone would know to look for and take out first.
The solution is an unknown number of CCW teachers and administrators that few know about and would not telegraph to anyone they were the targets to eliminate.
Arm the teachers! Reopen the mental wards!
Even if every single school can't afford a guard (it of course shouldn't be a national program but a local one), the talk alone is a deterrent to gun violence.
This is exacly the way the dialogue should go.
Bookmark for later.
No one but the left is opposing this idea. The only conclusion is that the left WANTS more mass shootings, so they can “justify” grabbing guns out of the hands of honest, law-abiding citizens and deliberately leaving them in the hands of criminals.
Once the so-called "public school" movement was under way, there were those who warned of potential dangers, and were either ignored or ostracized.
It is the same today. Those who speak out against the Dept. of Education and all of the other multitudinous bureaucracies that control the propagandizing of youth today in the name of "educating" them must be willing to be marginalized by the media and politicians.
Even as early as the Year 1886, such was the case. A man by the name of Zacharias Montgomery was denied an important post in the federal government for doing just that. You will read some of his words below. Read his complete work entitled, "Poison Drops in the Federal Senate - The School Question from a Parental and Non-Sectarian Standpoint" HERE. He provides statistics and documentation from public records to that date to support his position.
To read his report and conclusions leads one to realize this man's ability to see the consequences of what his fellow Americans were advocating in the area of education of youth.
With that said, those who love liberty must be willing to come forward to declare that it is better to be remembered for standing on and articulating enduring principles of right versus wrong, liberty versus tyranny, than to be praised by the mainstream media and so-called "progressives."
The words of Zacharias Montgomery in his 1886 Book entitled "Poison Drops in the United States Senate . . . ." are worth reading. Although his treatise dealt primarily with the public school question, the following remarks might be helpful to those who, today, are concerned by what passes for "public education."
Excerpts from his work:
"My countrymen, disguise the fact as we may, there is in this country to-day, and in both the political Parties, an element which is ripe for a centralized despotism. There are men and corporations of vast wealth, whose iron grasp spans this whole continent, and who find it more difficult and more expensive to corrupt thirty odd State Legislatures than one Federal Congress. It was said of Nero of old that he wished the Roman people had but one head, so that he might cut it off at a single blow. And so it is with those moneyed kings who would rule this country through bribery, fraud, and intimidation."It is easy to see how, with all the powers of government centered at Washington in one Federal head, they could at a single stroke put an end to American liberty.
"But they well understand that before striking this blow the minds of the people must be prepared to receive it. And what surer or safer preparation could possibly be made than is now being made, by indoctrinating the minds of the rising generation with the idea that ours is already a consolidated government ; that the States of the Union have no sovereignty which is not subordinate to the will and pleasure of the Federal head, and that our Constitution is the mere creature of custom, and may therefore be legally altered or abolished by custom.
"Such are a few of the pernicious and poisonous doctrines which ten millions of American children are today drinking in with the very definitions of the words they are compelled to study. And yet the man who dares to utter a word of warning of the approaching danger is stigmatized as an enemy to education and unfit to be men tioned as a candidate for the humblest office.
"Be it so. Viewing this great question as I do, not for all the offices in the gift of the American people would I shrink from an open and candid avowal of my sentiments. If I have learned anything from the reading of history, it is that the man who, in violation of great principles, toils for temporary fame, purchases for himself either total oblivion or eternal infamy, while he who temporarily goes down battling for right principles always deserves, and generally secures, the gratitude of succeeding ages, and will carry with him the sustaining solace of a clean conscience, more precious than all the offices and honors in the gift of man.
"History tells us that Aristides was voted into banishment because he was just. Yet who would not a thousand times rather today be Aristides than be numbered amongst the proudest of his persecutors.
"Socrates, too, in violation of every principle of justice, was con demned to a dungeon and to death. Yet what name is more honored in history than his? And which of his unjust judges would not gladly, hide himself in the utter darkness of oblivion from the with ering scorn and contempt of all mankind ?
"From the noble example of Aristides and of Socrates let American statesmen learn wisdom, and from the undying infamy of their cow ardly time-serving persecutors let political demagogues of today take warning."
So said Zacharias Montgomery in 1886.
Just for balance, I like to point out, that teachers are unionized too.
I doubt that the NRA calling for “armed guards” is against the idea of arming teachers being the armed guards.
“free teacher training in the proper use of firearms” is just about the WORST tack to take in this unfolding new “conversation” we’re just starting. I hope no one pushes it , because IT ALONE will threaten to sink any possible progress in this issue. Have you forgotten how hegemonic is the control of the Teacher’s Unions, and how they can already dictate what teachers can and can’t and won’t and wouldn’t be obligated to do in their highly ritualized function as teachers?
No, the real answers to school security lie elsewhere and teacher involvement isn’t one of them. If you could find a place where their Union doesn’t hold sway and make policy for all of them, it might be possible you’d find some teachers who would voluntarily agree to have firearms ready
for use, but ready for use, hidden away in a locked cabinet along with the glue and crayons, has its own problems.
Far better to have at least one retired cop who’s used to carrying a weapon, and knows from his training how to use it.
We are just beginning to get a taste of what Israel has been going through for many many years.
Nicely played by LaPierre, though I do disagree about the video games. I believe they might help an already sick person be slightly more successful at one of these shootings, they don’t cause them or even make them any more likely.
But...an armed guard in every school with a pump shotgun or a semi-auto pistol that won’t penetrate walls too easily...Absolutely!
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