The NRA finally has released a statement. Here is an excerpt:
We care about the President, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by armed Capitol Police officers. Yet when it comes to the most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family — our children — we as a society leave them utterly defenseless, and the monsters and predators of this world know it and exploit it. That must change now!
The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them. They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn’t planning his attack on a school he’s already identified at this very moment?
The essence is, we are leaving our children open to attack to insane shooters. None of this would happen if school campuses were guarded by armed officers. So the answer is: More guns. Put guns into schools! Brilliant idea.
The next insane killer isn’t going to spray bullets because there is an armed security guard in the school.
Insanity.
I agree that the speech today by the President of the NRA was coming very close to lunacy today. However, I do think that the best bang for the buck would not come by passing a lot of regulations and providing the necessary law enforcement for it. England, which has very strict gun control laws has still experienced a couple of instances of mass shootings in schools in the past 20 years. They make it really hard for civilians to get guns but it doesn’t seem to help all that much.
From an engineering perspective I think it would definitely make more sense to add more security to schools (not including teachers armed with guns, that’s just silly). This seems like it would be more cost effective since we know where all the schools are but we have no way to identify nutjobs or insure they won’t get their hands on firearms illegally ahead of time.