WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.) on Tuesday released a 225-page report on school safety funded by the National Rifle Association. The report, commissioned in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, recommended properly trained armed employees to provide “an important layer of security in schools.”…. “Teachers should teach, but if there is personnel that has interest and is willing to go through 40 to 60 hours of [firearms] training, then schools should be willing to [arm them],” Hutchinson said. He added that the report found that “local school authorities are in the best position” to determine their own school security measures, “specifically whether an armed security guard is necessary and supported by the education and citizen community.”…. The task force recommended that schools designate willing staff to be armed and trained, and it proposed a model training program, 40-60 hours per person, at what Hutchinson said would be a cost of about $800 to $1,000 per trained employee. Armed school personnel, called school resource officers, would also be required to undergo a “background investigation, testing, and [have] relevant experience.”
Wonderful…so now we have a report funded by the National Rifle Association (yet somehow magically independent of the NRA) telling us that the best way to prevent another Sandy Hook is to introduce yet more guns into our schools. Call me cynical, but how can anything funded by the NRA be independent of the influence of perhaps the single most ideologically rigid lobbying group in Washington? The NRA does NOTHING that isn’t calculated for maximum visibility and political impact. To think that they funded the report and then casually stepped aside and allowed their 12-person “School Shield Program” to come to their own conclusions is patently absurd. This report is about as impartial and unbiased as any Pat Robertson appearance on The 700 Club.
I can think of few things more potentially destructive than introducing firepower into our schools. Never mind the message it sends to our children, it’s a bad idea that places everyone- children and adults- in grave danger…all in the name of safety and security.
I was a teacher once upon a time, and the idea of anyone walking the halls carrying a firearm would have horrified me. It’s difficult to imagine how teachers and administrators carrying firearms would be a positive thing for anyone…other than the gun industry- the people the NRA answers to. A truly cynical person could interpret this reports as just another thinly veiled rationale for selling yet more of the gun industry’s products. It’s not about school safety, it’s about selling guns.
I can hardly wait to sample the reactions when we have our first friendly fire deaths in a school. I’d wager that there will be far more casualties from firearms being mishandled and accidental discharges than there will be lives saved.
It’s sad that we allow the Adam Lanzas of the world to win by caving into to our fear and paranoia and turning our schools into armed camps. What’s next? Razor wire ringing the playground perimeter? Claymore anti-personnel mines around a school’s property line? Guard towers staffed by people with “shoot to kill” orders? No, I’m not joking. Where and when do we draw a line and say that we’re not going to give in to fear? Do we have to turn our schools into medium-security prisons in order to feel that our children are safe? And what does that say about us as a society?
The NRA’s report is a joke which doesn’t begin to address the root causes of gun violence…but then it’s never been about that. For the NRA, it’s always been about ensuring that gun laws are as lax and unenforceable as possible. That’s what the gun industry pays them to do. If you think that the NRA gives a damn about the lives of innocent children and other civilians, you’re delusional.
