Armed police officers should be assigned to all schools to prevent gun violence, National Rifle Association director Wayne LaPierre said today in response to last Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Ct., reports the Washington Post. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre told a press conference in Washington, D.C. He called on Congress to act immediately “to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every school in this nation.”
LaPierre spoke on the same day that President Obama released a Web video urging the public to support new gun controls. LaPierre criticized those he said “have tried to exploit the tragedy for political gain.” He offered a broader cultural criticism, decrying violent video games and films. “There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people.” He cited “vicious, violent video games.” Responding to LaPierre, Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center said the NRA position “cynically allows for the continued sale of the assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines marketed by its gun industry corporate donors.” Sugarmann noted that armed guards failed to halt the 1999 mass killings at Columbine High School in Colorado.