Yesterday, the “National School Shield Task Force,” a 12-member study group commissioned by the National Rifle Association, released its recommendations [.pdf] for heightened school security in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The Washington Post’s coverage quotes the head of Children’s Defense Fund, who accuses the NRA of “prey[ing] on America’s fears” and trying to turn the nation’s schools “into armed fortresses.”
Not long ago, I’d have been shocked to find myself agreeing with Marian Wright Edelman over Wayne LaPierre, but in this case, the lady has a point. Since last December, the NRA leader has outdone left-leaning “children’s advocates” in fomenting legislative hysteria “for the children.” As I noted in Tuesday’s Washington Examiner:
The NRA head opposes new gun laws, but he’s otherwise been [President Obama’s] partner in panic, breathlessly demanding an “armed good guy” in every school—a federally funded expansion of “America’s police force.”
The Post notes that the National School Shield Task Force is “ostensibly independent” of NRA direction, and for what it’s worth, the report’s tone is less hysterical, the recommendations somewhat less sweeping, than LaPierre’s. But, like LaPierre’s public statements, it lacks any intelligent assessment of relative risks, instead making the very possibility of harm to children a rallying cry for opening the checkbook and summoning the security consultants. The entire project seems designed to enhance the paramilitarization of public institutions, allowing the Homeland Security mentality of institutionalized overreaction free rein in American schools.
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