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CLEVELAND, Ohio — In response to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the Buckeye Firearms Association has announced it will provide teachers with free firearms training.

The pro-gun advocacy organization said it would pay all expenses, including tuition, ammunition and lodging (estimated at $1,000 each) for 24 teachers to get comprehensive three-day training at Tactical Defense Institute in West Union, Ohio. If there is more demand, the Armed Teacher Pilot Program will be expanded to more sites.

The Buckeye Firearms Foundation will pay for the training.

Buckeye Firearms representative Jim Reese said during a broadcast of the Sound of Ideas on WCPN FM/90.3 Thursday: "We need to examine how we enhance the safety of our children in that environment. The first responder in a situation such as what we had in that school has got to be the teachers. You've got to educate the teacher, and when you look at the folks who stop these things while they're in progress, it typically is someone else who is armed."

Lori O'Neill, vice chairman of the Gun Victims Action Council, responded: "Introducing more guns into every situation we have has been has been the answer of the NRA for 30 years. We tried it your way, now we're going to try it a different way. Most good, common-sense Americans who I would put my trust in do not believe putting guns in schools around their children is in any way a solution to the occasional idiot that we have permitted to have unfettered access to any kind of guns and ammunition he wants."



On Friday, the NRA called for armed police officers to patrol every school, and blamed video games, movies and music for exposing children daily to violence.