Chris Christie Blasts NRA Suggestion Of Armed Guards In Schools
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s reaction to today’s NRA press conference was less than positive:
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has come out against posting armed guards in schools, telling reporters Friday that it would not make students safer.
Armed guards would not be effective, he said during an event in Newark, as reported by the Bergen Record, unless they were in every classroom. ”Because if you just have an armed guard at the front door then what if this guy had gone around to the side door? There’s many doors in and out of schools.”
He added that there would be significant drawbacks to such a system.
“You don’t want to make this an armed camp for kids,” Christie said. “I don’t think that’s a positive example for children. We should be able to figure out other ways to enhance safety.”
Christie is setting himself for an interesting political future after he finishes what now seems like an inevitable second term.
Here is at least one politician standing up to the National Rifle Association.
Good on this guy!
Will there be any others?
He’s doing a very good job of positioning himself on the sane side of the national GOP. However, he has to move away from INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS STATEMENTS like focusing on disaster relief rather than someone else’s presidential campaign or that more weapons in schools will not make them safer, and starts coming up with his own policy proposals that will run afoul of the favored positions of the far right, then he’ll be really interesting. I’m not holding my breath though.
I am far from sold on the idea of arming teachers, even if they volunteer. But it occurs to me that neither one side nor the other is talking about taking what ISTM is the first obvious step: survey teachers and see what they think about the idea. Seems like their voices should be heard.
Good for Christie, though he pretty much guaranteed the NRA funding a primary challenge if he runs for any other office than the one he holds. And if we know anything about contested republican Marie’s, the sane one rarely wins.
Yeah, sanity = treason in the GOP.
@Donald Sensing:
Keep up. Arming the teachers never went beyond the right wing nut circuit.
The NRA had the sense, at least, to support trained security officers.
Of course, as heard on twitter today:
That’s where it sticks. The right wing nut circuit was trying to get something for free … teachers who would just “carry” in addition to their other duties. It’s harder when you think it through.
So Doug it’s all about politics with Christie, not because it’s a completely idiotic idea.
Oh really? You and your ilk should be so accommodating when it involves the issues of unionization and collective bargaining rights…
One cop with a gun does not a school an “armed camp” make. I would agree that not every school needs a cop or two guarding it. Some are more likely than others to need such a security presence, and this is where local knowledge of the needs of the community comes into play.
Simply put, Newtown-style massacres are going to thankfully remain incredibly rare, but mostly because Newtown-style mass murderers are incredibly rare. Schools are always going to be an inviting target for depraved killers, but on any given day, nearly 100% of America’s schools will finish their days without a violent threat from outside, much less a lethal one.
There was an armed guard at Columbine.
So the right wing sees teachers as the source of all evil when it comes to evolution, unions, and climate change. . . and they want them armed.
Republicans are beyond parody.
I’m not sold on arming teachers or putting cops in schools on the off chance. However, Christie’s comment is ignorant.
“what if this guy had gone around to the side door?”
There are a billion what-ifs.
What if the guard doesn’t stop the attacker at the door but has to shoot them after they’ve entered a classroom and killed a few people? Would that be a failure if 2 instead of 20 were lost?
But the problem is, the spree attacker is a very remote possibility. So you’ve got this cost for something with a one in a million chance. But you’ve got an officer there day in and day out for years. Sooner or later, he or the school will want to get involved in student control. Then you end up, somewhere in the thousands of schools with a third grader getting tased for being a smart aleck and not complying with a “sir, yes sir”
I’d say the first thing to fix is to make a self defense/defense of others exception to the prohibition of non-on-duty law enforcement discharging a firearm in a federal “gun-free’ school zone. Oh, and permit those lawfully carrying a firearm to carry for routine business in the school. Then at least, schools wouldn’t be safe hunting grounds for killers.
Not a blast at all. I thought it was a rather weak response, as if he didn’t want to make the NRA angry. Compare its intensity level to other words that have come out of Christie’s mouth
@michael reynolds: So you see a little disconnect there???
So you think retirement will be interesting?
Not much of one on the national stage if he keeps heading in the gun controller direction.
Why do you think Obama wouldn’t touch gun control with a 10-ft pole before now? Why do you think they moved fast to shutdown Dems leaving Congress after this term by sending gun control to special commission that’ll report in January? Gun owners vote with ballots and their wallets.
@JKB:
Here’s the only relevant “what if.”
What if Adam Lanza’s mother had not stocked her house with guns?
And here’s the answer: 20 little children would still be alive.
@JKB:
We’re a nation of 315 million people and over 250 million guns, we’re awash in guns. The reflexive conservative response to mass killings always seems to be that ‘we need more guns, or that we need to encourage more people to carry guns – a sort of Mutually Assured Destruction approach. With so much weaponry so easily available to American citizens you’d think that we would be the safest advanced country in the world. We’re not, why?
@john personna:
Arming the teachers never went beyond the right wing nut circuit.
Well, no. Who knew that ABC News journalist Chris Cuomo, brother of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, was such a tool of the evil Wayne LaPierre?
In his presser on Friday, LaPierre called for armed guards to patrol the grounds of schools across America. He has since been savaged by the media. But he was only following Cuomo’s advice.