Feinstein Says NRA All Wrong About Preventing School Shootings
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— California's senior U.S. Senator is one of many local lawmakers who denounced the National Rifle Association's call for armed police officers in every school on Friday.
Senator Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer as well as other local leaders have said the NRA, which held a news conference in response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, has it all wrong when it comes to preventing school massacres.
California's leaders remain focused on enacting a new, federal ban on the kinds of weapons used in the Newtown massacre.
The NRA's news conference held in Washington with the organization's head, Wayne LaPierre, was interrupted by veteran protesters from the Bay Area's Code Pink. They could be heard shouting, "NRA has blood on its hands" and "Shame on the NRA!"
Senator Feinstein Says NRA All Wrong About Preventing School Shootings
LaPierre called on Congress to approve and pay for an armed cop at every public school by the time kids return from their holiday break and said, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
In response, Sen. Feinstein pointed out that about a third of schools already have armed guards on campus.
"If school districts want to hire armed security guards I support that. It's a decision each school district should make," she said.
But she added that the two armed cops working at Columbine didn't prevent that tragedy from happening. In addition, she called the NRA's proposal a delay tactic and a distraction from her plan to ban assault weapons, yet again.
"Is this the answer, that America should become an armed camp? I don't think so, and I don't think that's the American dream," she said.
Feinstein concluded the answer isn't more guns in schools, but fewer assault weapons in the hands of disturbed people.
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