WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's largest gun-rights lobby called Friday for armed police officers to be posted in every American school to stop the next killer "waiting in the wings."
The National Rifle Association broke its silence on last week's shooting rampage at a Connecticut elementary school that left 26 children and staff dead.
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," the group's top lobbyist, Wayne LaPierre, said at a Washington news conference.
LaPierre said "the next Adam Lanza," the man responsible for last week's mayhem, is planning an attack on another school.
"How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame from a national media machine that rewards them with wall-to-wall attention and a sense of identity that they crave, while provoking others to try to make their mark," LaPierre said. "A dozen more killers, a hundred more? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation's refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?"