{"id":22903,"date":"2013-01-23T18:19:24","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T17:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=22903"},"modified":"2013-01-23T18:19:24","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T17:19:24","slug":"schools-buy-military-grade-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/schools-buy-military-grade-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools buy military-grade weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arturo Garcia
\nRaw Story<\/a><\/p>\n

A California school board is being criticized following reports that it approved the purchase of 14 high-caliber rifles to be issued to school police officers responding to campus shootings.<\/p>\n

KTLA-TV reported on Wednesday<\/a>\u00a0that the Fontana Unified School District bought 14 Colt 6940 rifles at $1,000 apiece to store on campuses around the district. The semi-automatic weapons are used by both law enforcement and U.S. Special Forces.<\/p>\n

The purchase was approved by district Superintendent Cali Olsen-Binks last October. According to\u00a0the Fontana Herald News,<\/a>\u00a0school officers received the weapons last month and received 40 hours of training over the winter break to learn how to use them.<\/p>\n

Officials said the rifles will be stored in a safe on their respective campuses and will only be used to respond to attacks like the one on Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that criminals wear bullet proof vests,\u201d School Police Chief Billy Green told the newspaper. \u201cOur guns are not able to penetrate these vests from long distance, so we need shoulder weapons to defend innocent people. This is a decision I made and I have no regrets.\u201d<\/p>\n

But while local authorities supported Olsen-Binks\u2019 decision, other school officials expressed concern and suggested they were misled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did have meetings,\u201d board member Sophia Green\u00a0told KCAL-TV.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cBut at no point (did anyone say), \u2018Semi-automatic guns will be bought,\u2019 \u2018We have semi-automatic guns,\u2019 or \u2018Semi-automatic guns are being stored on school property.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Child development specialist Anna Conklin told the station that the district shuttered a school counseling program two years ago, and said the use of district funds on increased firepower ignored the question of addressing students\u2019 mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren aren\u2019t born with a gun in their hand and vengeance in their mind,\u201d she said. \u201cThey aren\u2019t necessarily going to grow into being a killer. We, as a society, need to address why children are growing up to commit these acts as teens and adults. I don\u2019t see how adding more weapons on a campus is addressing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, both Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren and Police Chief Rodney Jones have publicly endorsed Olsen-Binks\u2019 move, saying it is realistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants children safe,\u201d Warren said. \u201cAt this time, we as a community, we have to come together and find other ways. But in the interim, our police officers need to be equipped.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A California school board is being criticized following reports that it approved the purchase of 14 high-caliber rifles to be issued to school police officers responding to campus shootings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1616],"tags":[49],"class_list":{"0":"post-22903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-latest-news","7":"category-usa-news","8":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}