Why More Cops in Schools Is a Bad Idea

Even before Newtown, more cops were patrolling our schools. Parents, judges, and civil libertarians give them failing grades for treating routine discipline like a crime.

In post-Newtown America, those with power say they must act to prevent another massacre of innocents.

The Obama administration wants stiffer gun control, and $150 million to help schools hire up to 1,000 more on-campus police or counselors, or purchase security technology. State legislators are considering shifting millions of dollars around to help schools hire more police. Some locals aren't waiting: The 5,500-resident town of Jordan, Minnesota, has moved its entire eight-officer police force into schools.

"The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun," National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said after a young man shot his way into his former grammar school on December 14 in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 first-graders and 6 educators.

With the new year, the NRA has been flexing its political muscle, lobbying states not just to hire more school police—under the group's National School Shield project—but also to pass laws allowing teachers or other staff to bring licensed guns to school to defend their students and themselves.

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