“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre said at a Washington press event. He went on to say, “With all the money in the federal budget can’t we afford to put a police officer in every single school?”

Like clockwork, the media, liberal groups, and Democratic politicians were outraged at such a rational suggestion.

Is the NRA’s suggestion unreasonable? Bill Clinton in 2000 didn’t think so when on the “one-year anniversary of the Columbine shooting (which occurred with an assault weapons ban in place),” he “requested $60 million in federal money to fund . . . a program called ‘COPS in School,’ a program that does exactly what the NRA is proposing.” Clinton said:

“Already, it has placed 2,200 officers in more than 1,000 communities across our nation, where they are heightening school safety as well as coaching sports and acting as mentors and mediators for kids in need,” Clinton said.

Why do government officials get armed protection, but our children are denied it?

After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress directed the Secret Service to protect the President of the United States. In addition to the president, the vice-president, their immediate families, children of former presidents until the age 16,  visiting heads of foreign states or governments and their spouses traveling with them, major presidential and vice presidential candidates and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election, and other government officials.

Actors, sports figures, and many business leaders hire people to protect them.

Are our children any less important? The anti-gun lobby thinks so.

There is no need for the Federal Government to act on putting armed guards in schools. Parents should insist on it. What about funding? If the parents at Sandy Hook Elementary School paid $20 each month for ten months (the length of a school year) for each child in attendance, that would amount to $140,000, enough to hire two well-armed security guards.

One guard posts himself at the only access point to the school, while the other guard walks the perimeter. They alternate every hour. A soft target now becomes a hardened target.

Twenty dollars each month is cheap insurance. That’s 67 cents a day, less than a cup of coffee.

If your school won’t protect your children, then remove them. Teach them at home, join an educational co-op, enroll them in a church school, or a privately run school. They’ll be better off anyway.

Parents need to quit being held hostage by government officials (that’s what public school principals are), politicians, and teachers unions. It’s time that parents take action and insist on armed guards.