Officials are placing an arsenal of AR-15 assault rifles in North Carolina’s Madison County Schools in an effort to stop shooters from harming students.
That means school resources officers in the rural North Carolina district will now have access to the same semi-automatic weapons used by the attackers in Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde and others of the nation’s deadliest school shootings.
“We’ve sometimes seen that having just a deputy armed with a handgun isn’t enough to stop these animals,” Madison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood said in . “We want to ensure (students) can to go the playground and play and not worry about some thug … opening up on them with some kind of AR-15, shotgun or pistol.”
The guns are coming with the full support of the superintendent and school board, Harwood said. The AR-15s and accessories were bought with local donations and will be stored in gun safes in “undisclosed locations” in each of the district’s six schools.Deputies will also receive additional tactical training with the weapons, Harwood said.
The sheriff made the decision in response to daily school tragedies, including murders, shootings and rapes, that he says are occurring every day. “God forbid that anyone ever comes to our schools to cause harm, but if they do come … I want my resource officers to have the ability to meet violence with violence,” Harwood said. “My school resource officers will not have to wait, retreat or leave the situation.”
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The decision is receiving criticism and support on social media.
Remind me how many police officers with high caliber weapons were in Uvalde Tx?
— #justamerican #noparty (@RealsRu4)
The chance any particular school becomes a shooter's target is fairly low. The risk some incident could arise from placing such a weapon in each school and having it available for use just jumped from 0.00 to something x 6: more schools, more weapons, more risk.
— Jim Sylvester ???????? (@JVSylvester)
I don't know if this is the best solution but I don't see how it can make anything worse, can probably only help and provide a powerful deterrent.
AR-15s are easy to shoot, shouldn't take much training to become proficient. Hope they train a few staff members.
— Enisey (@enisey1337)
