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US Gun Lobby Calls for Armed Guards in All Schools

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The powerful American gun rights lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday called for armed guards to be placed in every school in the United States as the best way to protect children from gun violence.

WASHINGTON, December 21 (RIA Novosti) –The powerful American gun rights lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Friday called for armed guards to be placed in every school in the United States as the best way to protect children from gun violence.

“If we truly cherish our kids more than our money, more than our celebrities, more than our sports stadiums we must give them the greatest level of protection available, and that security is only available with properly trained good guys,” said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, during the organization’s first news conference since last week’s shooting at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school left 20 young children and seven adults dead, including the gunman.

LaPierre said gun-free school zones identified by signs “tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.”

LaPierre called on “Congress to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary” to make sure police officers or armed guards are placed in schools when students return in January. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said.

The US government can find money for foreign aid, why “can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school?,” he said. “Even if they did that, politicians have no business and authority to deny the right to protect ourselves and loved ones from harm.”

LaPierre, who was interrupted twice by protestors holding signs reading "NRA KILLING OUR KIDS," and screaming that the organization has "blood on its hands" and “ban assault weapons now,” went on to announce the NRA’s new National School Shield emergency response program.

The program will be headed up by former congressman Asa Hutchinson, who said during the news conference that there is nothing “more critical to our nation’s wellbeing than our children’s safety, they are this country’s future and most precious resource.”

The NRA, which has about four million members, will “hire knowledgeable experts in the US to get the program up and running,” LaPierre said, and will develop a safety plan that will be a comprehensive strategy aimed at school security.

While LaPierre said that school security is of the upmost importance, he also laid blame on “media conglomerates competing to shock” the world with news of mass shootings, and violent video games, “blood soaked films,” and music videos that “portray murder as a way of life” for contributing to gun violence in America.

LaPierre refused to take questions during the news conference.

Earlier on Friday, Americans remembered the victims of the school massacre with a moment of silence. Church bells rang out in Newtown and along the East Coast in memory of the victims killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used a military-style assault rifle during his rampage at the school.

 

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