Arm schoolteachers, NRA panel suggests

Correction: This story should have said former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson proposed armed guards for schools and passage of laws empowering local school officials to determine whether properly trained school staff could fill that role in some instances. The report was financed by the National Rifle Association. The story and headline misstated Hutchinson’s position.

WASHINGTON — After three months of study and funding from the National Rifle Association, former U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas on Tuesday recommended that schoolteachers and administrators carry guns to defend against school attackers.

After the massacre of 20 students and six educators in Newtown, Conn., in December, the NRA, the nation’s largest gun-rights lobbying group, budgeted $1 million to conduct a study on how to increase school safety and tapped Hutchinson, a Republican and former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to lead the effort,called the National School Shield Task Force.

Hutchinson’s 225-page report focused on how to train teachers in firearm safety, proposed the use of video surveillance in schools and discussed how to limit outsiders’ access to campus. It did not address gun-related legislation pending in Congress.

He would create a private organization to advocate for school safety, provide online tools for schools to determine their security weaknesses and offer training for schools that decide to arm employees. The NRA, Hutchinson said, is in a position to fund the National School Shield Task Force “to fulfill this important national mission.”

The Senate will begin debate on comprehensive gun legislation soon after it returns from recess on April 8. Lawmakers will consider a range of options designed to reduce gun violence, including more stringent background checks at gun sales, outlawing assault-style weapons and limiting the number of rounds of ammunition allowed in a single clip.

“I am not focused on the separate debate in Congress about firearms,” Hutchinson told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. “Our focus is on the school-safety side.”

Hutchinson, a Republican seeking the Arkansas gubernatorial nomination in the 2014 race, declined to say exactly how much was spent or how much he was paid to lead the effort. After facing the media, he was whisked to a freight elevator at the National Press Club by a phalanx of security guards provided by the rifle association.

In a statement, the NRA said it needed more time to “digest” Hutchinson’s recommendations, but that the suggestions “will go a long way to making America’s schools safer.”

Criticism was swift.

The proposal would turn America’s schools into “armed fortresses,” said the American Federation of Teachers, a national teachers’ union. The key to preventing gun violence, said the federation’s president, Randi Weingarten, is to pass legislation that would ban large magazine clips in guns and “military assault weapons” and require more extensive background checks before gun purchases.

Weingarten called Hutchinson’s set of recommendations “a cruel hoax that will fail to keep our children and schools safe. It is simply designed to assist gun manufacturers and flood our schools with more guns.”

Hutchinson said a ban on assault weapons would be“totally inadequate” in addressing school violence.

“You can address assault weapons, and it doesn’t stop someone from bringing in a .45 caliber firearm into a school,” he said.

Hutchinson told the story of Joel Myrick, a principal at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss. In 1997, Luke Woodham, a 16-year-old student at the school, killed two of his fellow students and injured 7 before Myrick ran outside and retrieved a .45 caliber pistol from his car. Gun in hand, Myrick forced Woodham to surrender.

If Myrick had had his gun holstered on him, Hutchinson suggested, Woodham may have been apprehended sooner.

“The key is reducing that response time,” Hutchinson said.

In the Rogers School District, where Hutchinson’s law firm is located, Rogers police officers guard its two high schools and four middle schools. They serve as a deterrent against crime and help build a rapport between students and officers, said Janie Darr, the district’s superintendent.

Darr hasn’t read Hutchinson’s report, she said, but is “uncomfortable” with the idea of arming school employees.

“We’re not trying to be police officers or security officers,” she said. “We’re trying to educate students.”

In January, the Little Rock School Board rejected a proposal by Robert Jones, the district’s director of safety and security, that would have allowed the district’s elementary school security resource officers to carry guns.

Jones declined to be interviewed Tuesday.

In his proposal, he wrote that “we must accept we are living in a changing time in reference to protecting our children. Regardless of the reason for the increase in school shootings, I do not believe we can sit idly by and not take precautions to protect our most valuable assets.”

However, Jones said that he would only support arming certified law-enforcement officers, or people who had passed a psychological test, completed at least 40 hours of training and passed a firearms certification course.

“There are just too many liability and safety factors” to let others carry guns in schools, he wrote.

Armed guards are a good idea around the perimeter of a school, said Norma Jean Johnson, a Little Rock School Board member, but it is too risky to put guns in the hands of a teacher.

“When you arm them,” she said, “they become a target.”

At the state Capitol, lawmakers are also looking for ways to address public schoolviolence. Legislation to allow guns on college and university campuses became law on Monday.

In addition, Rep. Homer Lenderman, D-Brookland, has sponsored a bill that would allow school employees to carry a firearm if they have received 40 hours of training and passed psychological background checks.

The bill has stalled thus far, but Lenderman, a retired teacher, says he’ll keep pushing for approval.

During Tuesday’s news conference, Hutchinson said the task force had backed away from one of its original ideas, which was to allow armed volunteers, suchas retired police officers or armed service members, to patrol schools. The idea was less expensive, he said, but raised liability issues.

Hutchinson said it should be left up to each school district to decide whether to arm school employees. He said the cost of training, which would be up to $1,000 per employee, could make it tough for smaller schools.

“I come from a rural state,” Hutchinson said. “I understand how these smaller school districts struggle.”

Hutchinson outlined less costly alternatives to armed guards, such as adding protective covering on door hinges and locks.

“It’s not expensive, but it’s a very important tool to provide greater security for our teachers and our students in the classroom,” he said.