Christie: Armed Guards In Schools Not The Solution

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In contrast to National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Friday said he doesn’t think putting armed guards in every school is a sound response to last week’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. 

“In general I don’t think that the solution to safety in schools is putting an armed guard because for it to be really effective in my view, from a law enforcement perspective, you have to have an armed guard at every classroom,” Christie said while appearing at an event in Newark, N.J. “Because if you just have an armed guard at the front door then what if this guy had gone around to the side door? There’s many doors in and out of schools.”

Christie didn’t see LaPierre’s Friday morning press conference, where the pro-gun lobby chief called on Congress to allocate sufficient funding to put armed police officers “in every single school in this nation.” As such, the popular Republican made it clear that he wasn’t responding directly to the NRA.

“I don’t know the totality of the proposal so I’m not commenting on the NRA proposal in particular because I don’t know it yet,” Christie added.

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