The National Rifle Association on Friday offered his vision of a nationwide program that would place armed security in every school desiring protection in response to last week's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
"I call on Congress today to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation," Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president, said at a press conference in Washington, D.C. There, he unveiled the National School Shield NRA Education and Training Emergency Response program, to be headed up by former Arkansas U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson.
Under the proposed program, schools would be permitted to tailor the type of security desired to their school's situation or refuse it altogether.
Friday's press conference offered the NRA's first public comments-- other than a brief statement expressing condolence--s since the Newtown shooting Dec. 14. LaPierre, Hutchison and David Keene, president of the NRA, all declined to take questions from the press Friday and said NRA press officers won't be responding to the media until Monday.
LaPierre said the organization, unlike others who "tried to exploit tragedy for political gain, we have remained respectively silent."
And he noted that the Newtown incident would have been different if someone armed and trained was present at Sandy Hook that day. Twenty children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook after a gunman opened fire in the school. Several adults died trying to stop the gunman and protect students.
"Innocent lives might have been spared," LaPierre said, if armed security was present. "The only thing that stops bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
Part of the problem in protecting schools currently is the designation of gun-free school zones, LaPierre said, which turns schools into targets for killers in his opinion.
The zones "tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk," he said.
He criticized lawmakers who hail gun-free zones as accomplishments.
But stopping gun violence at its root requires changes made on many fronts including gaming and in the media, LaPierre said, blaming video games such as "Mortal Kombat," "Grand Theft Auto," "Bulletstorm," "Splatterhouse" and an internet game called "Kindergarten Killer."
He criticized the media for "stowing violence" on society and failing to report on games such as these as well as for vilifying guns and gun owners, and for publicizing inaccuracies about guns.
"Why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect the president of our country or our police but bad when it’s used to protect children in our schools?" he posited.
LaPierre said the media "called [him] crazy" when he first suggested armed security in every school in America. But now, it's clearly time to make that a consideration.
"It’s our duty to protect them," LaPierre said of the nation's schoolchildren. "It’s our right to protect them."
Pressure on lawmakers from gun control advocates has increased in the wake of the shooting.
President Barack Obama on Friday released a web video in response to an outpouring of White House petitions calling on the president to respond to gun violence.
“We hear you," Obama said in the video. "I will do everything in my power as president to advance these efforts, because if there’s even one thing we can do as a country to protect our children, we have a responsibility to try. But as I said earlier this week, I can’t do it alone. I need your help.”
Obama has tasked Vice President Joe Biden to review potential gun legislation and other measures to act on next session.
Biden yesterday spoke to law enforcement leaders about banning assault weapons though no further details were released on the private discussion.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has pledged to introduce a new federal assault weapons ban in January and has received support from several gun rights advocates and from the White House.
Friday's press conference was interrupted twice by gun control protesters despite tight security at the Willard InterContinental Hotel.
A man rose from the press area in front of LaPierre during his speech and held up a pink cloth displaying "NRA Killing Our Kids." Later, a woman unfurled a sign reading "NRA blood on your hands” and shouted "reckless behavior coming from the NRA" and other comments as she was escorted out.
Gun control protesters as well as PETA protesters and others lined the street in front of the hotel entrance Friday waving signs and shouting in anticipation of the press conference.
Olivier Knox contributed to this report.
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