During his February 22 CPAC speech NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre suggested leftists are too focused on pushing gun control to redirect their energies and fight for school safety.

LaPierre said, “The elites don’t care one wit about school children. If they truly cared, they would protect them.”

He suggested a hatred for the NRA is the only passion leftists hold as strongly as they hold gun control.

TIME quoted LaPierre assessing the left’s reaction to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack. He suggested they viewed the emotional aftermath as an opportunity for more laws rather than an opportunity to actually make schools safer.

LaPierre said, “It’s not a safety issue, it’s a political issue. They care more about control. Their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eliminate all individual freedoms.”

He contrasted this approach with that of the NRA, saying, “They don’t care if their laws work or not. They just want get more laws to get more control over people. But the NRA, the NRA does care.”

On February 19 Breitbart News reported on the NRA’s National School Shield, a campus security program built on the NRA’s commitment to keep students safe. The program rests on the NRA maxim that “the only thing that stops a bad buy with a gun is a good guy with gun,” It includes training, installation, and acquaintance with certain communications equipment, surveillance methods, protocols, and security measures (including weapons training where apropos).

The NRA is offering grants for National School Shield to be sure schools in poorer economic settings have access to the same campus security as those in wealthier areas.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.