I guess that depends upon one’s perspective. As many of you might know, I have been very hard on the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other so-called Second Amendment advocate groups of late. But I should point out right away that I stand behind every one of my accusations about those groups.

In an opinion piece found at the Patriot Post, the writer begins to get off the “we got to ban guns” attack and focuses a bit more on the real societal issues driving the violent actions by some. The author mentions our failure at addressing mental illness and growing up in a “fatherless” home. But the real focus seemed to be on making schools safer.

All of these are suggested pills to take to mask the symptoms of a greater problem – a growing immoral, and Godless society.

I’ve discovered through reading this opinion piece that the NRA has an organization called National School Shield. It’s stated Mission is as follows: “The National School Shield^®  program is committed to addressing the many facets of school security, including best practices in security infrastructure, technology, personnel, training, and policy. Through this multidimensional effort, National School Shield^® seeks to engage communities and empower leaders to help make our schools more secure.”

And that’s pretty much all you will find out about what specifically they do that makes schools safer while engaging communities and EMPOWERING leaders (shivers running up and down my spine). I guess you have to “trust” them. And by the way, they want you to donate.

And therein lies some of the rub. Yes, they state that each school is different and that the issue of school safety is not simple, etc. It all sounds good. Who wouldn’t want a safer school setting? Hadn’t we ought to know more about this and precisely what sort of things they are suggesting that include “best practices in security?” I guess you could call them and try to find out. I didn’t.

Looking at who heads this program and knowing it is a product of the NRA, it is easy to see they are a non-governmental organization that is run by the government, as so many of them today are. If you trust your government and you trust the NRA I would suppose you would find this program right up your alley. You can exclude me. I think there are better answers but not until more people are ready to accept what the problem really is.

In addition to close government affiliation, we find on the NSS website that the ONLY ones eligible to participate in their “training” programs are current or former licensed law-enforcement personnel. Sorry! That’s a big turn-off for me.

I know that after 9/11 the country made heroes out of every cop that ever lived. Cops are cops. They are but human. They are not blanket heroes and shouldn’t be dangerously placed in a position that causes them to think they have more power than they do. We don’t need to enhance the police state atmosphere that already exists. Fear will do that.

There are probably a lot of good people more than qualified to participate in this training program. Why just cops?

To get back to my original question is the NRA all bad, I guess I’ll leave that answer up to you. I see them as not all bad but they are far from all good either. Is this program all bad? Maybe and maybe not. I for one would not put any faith and trust in it but you must understand I wouldn’t put much faith and trust in most things a man does and especially the government.

Mildly put, I am quite skeptical.