NRA chief wants 'good guys' with guns in every US school to keep armed 'bad guys' at bay
London, Dec. 22 (ANI)
America's most powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has demanded armed guards in the hallways of every school, declaring, "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun".
In a chaotic press conference, Wayne LaPierre, NRA's executive Vice President, dismissed growing calls for a ban on assault weapons as a "dangerous notion" and warned that America's children were "utterly defenceless" in their classrooms.
"When it comes to our most beloved, innocent and vulnerable members of the American family, our children, we as a society leave them every day utterly defenceless," The Telegraph quoted LaPierre, as saying.
He said his organisation would oppose President Barack Obama's efforts to bring in the first reform of 'gun control' laws in nearly two decades and instead called for a national database of the "mentally ill".
According to the paper, the NRA had promised they would offer "meaningful contributions" to the national debate on firearms in their first public statements since the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school, where gunman Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six adults.
However, gun control advocates were left outraged as LaPierre appeared to dismiss calls for new laws and instead railed against the press, liberal politicians and the video game industry, the paper said.
Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City and a champion of gun control, described the press conference as "a shameful evasion of the crisis" facing the US, the paper added.
"Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe," he said.