California educators and Democratic politicians are rebuking the National Rifle Clan for suggesting that more guns in schools would keep students, teachers and staff safer. The NRA broke its silence nigh the massacre of children and teachers concluding calendar week at Connecticut'southward Sandy Hook Elementary School, holding a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C.

"The only affair that stops a bad guy with a gun is a skillful guy with a gun," said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre in a quote heard around the country. He called on Congress to put armed constabulary officers in every school in the state.

"In the wake of last week'southward tragedy, information technology's disheartening that anyone would think the answer is to have more guns in and around our schools," said Land Superintendent of Public Educational activity Tom Torlakson in an email.

California Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg echoed the sentiment in a argument on his website saying, "The NRA's suggestion that we militarize our schools is not the solution."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan during an interview on the PBS program NewsHour. Source: NewsHour. (click to enlarge).

U.South. Secretary of Teaching Arne Duncan during an interview on the PBS program NewsHour. Source: NewsHour. (Click to enlarge)

Just many California schools already have resources officers and armed police officers stationed on campus. A survey of about 300 school districts by EdSource last July institute that 52 pct of the land's high schools, 16 percentage of middle schools and v percent of simple schools already have police or resource officers. In high schools 83 percentage of those officers are armed. That drops to 75 percent in eye schools and 59 percent in elementary schools.

In the San Francisco Unified School Commune, which has law or resource officers in all its loftier schools and middle schools, they aren't really in that location for violence prevention, said longtime school board fellow member Jill Wynns.

"The real purpose of having the resource officers is to connect the constabulary to the students and the school," she explained. "We think it'south important for students to know the police force in their neighborhood, and we recollect nosotros need relationships with them for that to exist effective."

Wynns said the San Francisco Police Section pays for the officers posted in schools, just regardless of who foots the beak – the district, the police force, the federal or state government – the price tag is high. The National Clan of School Resource Officers estimates it would cost betwixt $80,000 and $100,000 per officer. With about eight,300 schools, the conservative gauge for California is almost $668 million a twelvemonth. The arrangement is also in full general agreement with the NRA nearly the benefits of armed officers in schools. "A well-trained, armed, schoolhouse-based law officer is one of the best defenses against an agile shooter in a school," wrote executive managing director Mo Canady in comments on the group's home page.

Decisions on how to spend the limited funds bachelor for education shouldn't be made by the NRA, said Wynns. "In my personal view, nosotros should be concerned that someone outside of schoolhouse districts would say, 'Oh yes, we should brand a major investment in armed guards in our schools,' but not in making sure that we have enough money for instruction."

Schools as well are generally safe places for children; despite the unimaginable horror of mass murders similar those at Sandy Hook and Columbine. In cities, the streets are the most dangerous identify. "Gun violence has haunted me my unabridged life," U.S. Didactics Secretary Arne Duncan told PBS NewsHour reporter Gwen Ifill in an interview that aired Friday nighttime. "I had a lot of mentors, adept friends I grew up with, shot expressionless when I was growing up," said Duncan, choking back tears.

More recently, when he was superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, Duncan said "we cached a child killed past gun violence every two weeks." They weren't shot in school, they were shot walking to school or, once, by a stray bullet fired by an automatic rifle that tore through a business firm i morning and killed a girl as she was getting prepare for schoolhouse.

When Ifill cited some elected officials, including governors, who said if teachers at Sandy Hook had been armed they might accept been able to protect themselves and their students, Duncan disagreed. "We can't fight evil with evil. Nosotros demand less guns not more; we need schools gun free," he said. America needs to take the chat, said Duncan, calculation, "I hope yous, very very few teachers are asking for more guns in schoolhouse."

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