What NRA’s ‘School Shield’ would cost

David Cay Johnston, one of the country's top investigative reporters, has covered crime, the LAPD and written for police magazines and other publications on policing strategy and tactics. He has also been a gun owner (revolvers, rifles and shotguns), and got a near-perfect score in LAPD combat simulation training.

The National Rifle Association has proposed a bold plan to make children safe from mass murderers by creating a "shield" around these schools whose primary defense mechanism would be guns.

We should examine this idea to see what it would cost, what societal changes it would entail and, most importantly, whether it would be effective.

If the NRA is right, then we ought to do it. But is the NRA on target?

Asa Hutchinson, the former congressman and federal prosecutor who chaired the National School Shield Task Force, will not say how much he and the 12 other committee members were paid or how much of that money came from the NRA, which formed the committee three months ago following the murders of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, CT.

None of the 13 committee members named in the 225-page is an educator. However, all of them have a financial interest in security training.

Five of the 13 committee members describe themselves as employed by  Phoenix RBT Solutions. Its website says it "offers reality-based training solutions for law enforcement, military and private sector security at the national and international level. " One of its products is called "ultimate training munitions."

The report says each district should make its own decisions, which is smart since the committee has no authority and is simply an arm of the National Rifle Association.

But to examine its proposal we should look at the cost of placing a "school resources officer," as the NRA euphemistically calls these "sworn law-enforcement officers" at every school. Why?  Because that is what a shield implies and protecting only some schools would simply make the unguarded schools more inviting targets for mass murder, an idea marketed by the NRA.

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