NRA calls for armed guards in schools to prevent gun violence WASHINGTON - In the week after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, as President Obama and Democratic lawmakers issued urgent calls for new restrictions on guns, America's largest and most powerful gun lobby lay low. But its silence did not mean the National Rifle Assn. had grown conciliatory. When NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre finally weighed in Friday, he delivered a lashing speech that attacked gun-free school zones, the media and violent movies and video games as he pledged his group would train a vast force of armed volunteers to protect the nation's schools. The NRA's defiant stance underscored the pugilistic nature of the 141-year-old organization and its steadfast resistance to any efforts to curb gun sales or ownership. That battle is expected to begin in earnest as soon as next month, when a White House effort led by Vice President Joe Biden reports its recommendations on how to curb gun violence. The gun lobby will be a key player in that fight and is increasingly seen as a partisan one, tightly aligned with the Republican Party - a view only heightened by LaPierre's combative address. It remains to be seen how that might affect the influence of the NRA, which easily swept back efforts to enact new federal firearms restrictions after mass shootings in the last decade. But the massacre of 20 first-graders and six staff members at the Newton, Conn., school on Dec. 14 has brought new energy to the long-stymied gun control movement. LaPierre, speaking to the media in a hotel blocks from the White House, made clear that the NRA did not see any need to further regulate guns. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun," he said, "is a good guy with a gun." The real problem, he said, was Hollywood and video game makers, calling them "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people." Among the "blood-soaked films" he named was "Natural Born Killers." The 1994 film's director, Oliver Stone, noted that such films are seen around the world. "If movies caused gun violence, all countries would have the same levels seen in the U.S. They do not," he said. LaPierre's proposal - that the NRA finance a project to deploy armed volunteers to every school - met with scathing responses from gun control advocates, educators and faith leaders, many of whom charged the group with failing to take responsibility for its role in gun violence. "If there is a need for security at our elementary schools today, it is largely because the NRA's Washington leadership has gutted the gun laws that used to keep schools and day-cares and churches safe," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. In Congress, the reaction broke along partisan lines, with Democrats voicing strong disgust with the group's tack while Republicans remained silent. One of the most pointed responses was a post on Twitter by Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator-elect from Connecticut: "Walking out of another funeral and was handed the NRA transcript. The angry reaction from the NRA's critics on the left highlighted how the group had moved right in its politics. The group historically has enjoyed bipartisan support, but it has increasingly allied itself with the GOP in recent years. This year, it pumped at least $12 million into a campaign to defeat Obama. The White House had no comment Friday on the NRA's news conference. In a video address posted on the White House website before LaPierre spoke, Obama asked for help passing laws banning the sale of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines, and requiring background checks for all gun purchases. Richard Feldman, a former NRA regional political director, said the group's polarizing role in the debate had interfered with its message. "Had the same words been uttered today by the heads of the National School Boards Assn. and the National Police Officers Assn., everybody would've been in the room going, 'Uh huh, that makes sense,'" said Feldman, a frequent NRA critic who agrees with the school security proposal. To the degree there's going to be push-back, it's going to be because the NRA said it. LaPierre made a nod to such sentiments in his speech, predicting that the media, "consumed by fear and hatred of the NRA and American gun owners," would distort his words. "More guns, you'll claim, are the NRA's answer to everything," he said. Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when did the gun automatically become a bad word? The NRA chief noted that armed security officers were stationed in front of banks, airports, courthouses and sports stadiums, and that armed Secret Service agents and Capitol police protect the president and members of Congress.