Brownells, a leading firearm provider based in Grinnell, recently donated nine AR-15 rifles to school resource officers in North Dakota.

In August, the Bismarck Police Department requested funds to purchase AR-15s and other equipment for school resource officers. News of the request spread across the country. Brownells, which calls itself the "world's largest supplier of firearms accessories and gunsmithing tools" then offered to donate the rifles for free.

"We regularly support law enforcement agencies, both in and outside of Iowa," said Brownells spokesman Ryan Repp. "That support ranges from donations in product, in cash and in discount usage of our shooting range near Grinnell."

Repp said he believed this was the company's first donation specifically directed toward school resource officers. The donation was valued at $8,650, he said.

Bismarck has six SROs that patrol the city's public high schools and middle schools as well as a private Catholic high school, the Bismarck Tribune reported. Those officers carry handguns, but police officials believed an AR-15 would prove more beneficial if officers need to shoot from far away, the newspaper reported.

The National Rifle Association has called the AR-15 "the most popular rifle in America." But those semi-automatic rifles have increasingly appeared in American mass shootings, including the deadliest high school shooting in the nation's history in February 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Police and school officials in Bismarck and across the country began rethinking school safety measures following recent mass shootings. Violent incidents in schools increased 113 percent during the 2017-18 school years, according to a new report issued by the Educator's School Safety Network, a national non-profit school safety organization.

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In North Dakota, the news that the police department was looking to add AR-15s for school protection prompted interest from several companies and individuals.

"We had an outpouring of support from even individuals, (one who) called from, I think, he was from Virginia and wanted to donate his personal rifle to the project," Bismarck police deputy chief Jason Stugelmeyer told The Bismarck Tribune.

Previously: The new face of Iowa's international gun dealer