The gun lobby group said school security had acted as a « deterrent », preventing the shooter—who went on to kill six people—from targeting another location.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has reacted to a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, which left six people dead on Monday, by claiming enhanced school security acted as a « deterrent » for such crimes.
In its only social media post since the tragic incident, the gun lobby organization pointed to a police statement that the shooter had considered targeting another location to the one they settled on, but had chosen not to do so as it had « too much security. »
Proponents of gun control often cite school shootings among emotive examples of the need for greater restrictions, while gun advocates have previously stressed the need for armed security in public institutions to counter the possibility of such attacks while maintaining the constitutional right to bear arms.
In response to a mass shooting in Florida in 2018, the NRA backed calls from then-President Donald Trump to arm teachers, with CEO Wayne LaPierre telling the Conservative Political Action Conference: « To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun. »
In a statement on Monday, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said officers had been called to the Covenant School, a private Christian institution, to the southwest of the city, at around 10:13 a.m. local time (11:13 a.m. ET) following reports of shots being fired in the building.
