National Rifle Association gains momentum from reserve officers in US schools

Under the fluorescent lights of a high school gymnasium, dozens of teenagers took turns firing air rifles at a series of targets. It was part of a marksmanship competition that attracted students from schools across the Gulf Coast of Florida.

The event was better equipped than many collegiate contests, with lights illuminating the targets, telescopic sights and a heavy curtain to keep projectiles from going too far. It’s all thanks to one crucial sponsorship: that of the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) charitable wing.

“A lot of the equipment you’re seeing was donated by the NRA,” said Bryan Williams, a retired Army major who teaches in the JROTC (Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps) program at Mariner High School in Cape Coral.

The mention of the NRA was not casual. Data reveals that, in order to obtain the entity’s sponsorship, military instructors who lead JROTC marksmanship teams in public high schools have promised to promote the organization in competitions and newsletters, fix NRA banners in schools or add the entity’s logo to students’ uniforms. .

Williams also offered to provide the NRA with student testimonials, “with photos and anecdotes highlighting the equipment and happy cadets.”

At a time when many districts are making strenuous efforts to keep guns out of schools, JROTC is one of the few programs offered in schools that promotes gun training.

Since 2015, the NRA has donated more than $5 million in cash and equipment to support competitive shooting programs in schools. It is one of several outside organizations that help fund JROTC programs, according to tax and other documents.

Some of the school districts that have received NRA contributions, including the Lee County District in Florida, include schools that automatically enroll students in certain grades in JROTC classes or otherwise encourage them to take classes, although participation in teams target shooting is usually voluntary.

The NRA supports JROTC programs by promoting shooting competitions, advertising teams in its promotion magazine, and giving special badges to participants in shooting competitions.

The programs, which use air rifles, not firearms, are widespread in many communities where shooting and hunting are popular sports activities, and parents of students praise the training for teaching teenagers to handle guns safely.

But schools generally ban guns on their campuses, and there have been instances where firing squads have spooked teachers and students concerned about school shootings and rising gun violence. Some school districts have eliminated their JROTC shooting programs or have had heated discussions about how to incorporate them into school life.

For the NRA, which faces increasing legal and financial problems, along with a loss of revenue and membership, the outreach provided by JROTC programs offers access to a whole new generation of potential members, in a space that enjoys unique trust: the school public.

A spokesperson for the association said in a statement that the organization is proud to fund shooting teams and that promotion by JROTC instructors is their choice, not a condition of sponsorship.

“The NRA Foundation is proud to sponsor firearms education and training for a range of eligible organizations,” said Andrew Arulanandam. “Grants sometimes voluntarily promote our awareness efforts about the importance of firearms training, gun safety and shooting sports. We are proud of these activities and the positive impact they have on students, schools and communities across the world. the country.”

In their efforts to secure NRA grants to fund college shooting training and competitions, JROTC instructors have said the grants will increase the number of teens trained to use firearms safely and promote the Second Amendment to the Constitution, according to with documents from school districts obtained by the New York Times in response to more than 100 requests. Some instructors have pledged to encourage cadets to join the NRA and have offered students to volunteer to participate in NRA fundraising events.

“With this donation we have the opportunity to engage a group of at-risk students in shooting sports,” wrote one instructor in Kentucky.

“The NRA is a widely known and recognized entity in our community. We look forward to being able to further that reputation with our demonstration of engagement and excellence,” wrote another in California.

A JROTC instructor in Texas wrote that having access to firearms in school “fosters positive attitudes toward Second Amendment rights in these future voters and their families.”

The return offered by JROTC instructors in return for funding has in many cases been transactional in nature. One instructor said that NRA banners at competitions and other JROTC venues will constitute “advertising space” which will be more or less depending on the amount of the contribution. Others pledged to recognize the organization on the internet, on the radio and in local newspapers.

At the Florida competition in April, students and their parents praised the shooting program and JROTC in general, saying it improved the teens’ self-confidence and concentration in school.

Sitting in the stands, Elizabeth Vazquez followed her daughter Eryka’s participation and said she loved seeing her daughter gain self-confidence with the program. “She’s enjoying it, she’s happy. So I, as a mother, will be supportive,” she commented. “I thought my daughter would be a cheerleader or a ballerina, but she shoots — that’s what she likes. So OK, I’ll be supportive.”

The NRA has donated more than $150,000 since 2015 in cash and equipment to competitive shooting programs at Mariner High and other schools in Lee County on Florida’s west coast. The money is part of the $144 million the organization says it has spent over the past two decades to promote youth shooting sports at JROTC and other programs.

Several of the spectators attending the JROTC event in Cape Coral wore T-shirts with pro-gun logos.

Military recruiters attended the event throughout the day and spoke with students about the benefits of joining the Armed Forces. This military participation has drawn opposition from parents and students who object when schools make JROTC enrollment mandatory or automatic.

Michael Sloan, senior deputy commander of a local post for Veterans of International Wars, said he was proud to see teenagers learning to handle weapons safely and effectively.

“A lot of people say a lot of things about young Americans, but to see you all here today exercising your Second Amendment rights is something that makes us enormously proud,” he said, addressing students at the start of the second day of the competition. “We appreciate your patriotism. Stand firm! America is great, and you are part of what makes it great.”

But there have been instances where the presence of weapons in schools within JROTC programs has caused problems.

A high school in Durham, North Carolina, locked its doors after someone reported a person with a gun. So the school board identified the person as a JROTC cadet doing exercises.

In Dover, Delaware, a JROTC program that wanted to create a marksmanship team ran into a problem: it would violate the city’s strict gun control code. The program got city rules changed to allow for cadet training. The following year the team received a grant of more than $10,000 from the NRA.

In 2019, students in Nashua, New Hampshire, objected when a JROTC program asked to include an on-campus shooting program. Paula Durant, then a senior, said that she and some of her classmates argued that the school should be a gun-free zone and that the air rifles used in the JROTC program looked like the real thing. She said students had been on edge since the previous year’s massacre in Parkland, Florida, when a JROTC alumnus and cadet wearing a JROTC program T-shirt shot dead 17 people.

At a public meeting, she asked the school board to move shooting practice off campus. The school district ended up joining the proposal. She was later reportedly the target of strong negative reactions from people who accused her of cowardice. Some people reportedly used such a threatening tone that city police came to campus to assure her that they would support her.

After the 2018 Parkland school shooting, the Broward County school board, which encompasses the city, decided it would no longer accept money from the NRA. Some teachers have also expressed doubts regarding shooting competitions and weapons training.

Deborah Teal is a teacher at Santa Ana High School in Orange County, California. She said she has seen the program help students not involved in other school activities, but she finds the emphasis on guns frightening at a time when students already face so much gun violence.

“What worries me is the militarization of teenagers, especially vulnerable teenagers.” Teal also said that some students at the school where she taught had launched a petition asking that the shooting program be canceled. The petition was unsuccessful.

Michael H. Manney, a JROTC instructor at the Santiago school, wrote to the NRA earlier this year to say that the shooting program helped attract more students to JROTC and made weapons training available to low-income students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend. they would have no one to show them how to handle weapons safely.

“We want to foster ‘esprit de corps’ among cadets and in the community by providing basic training in the handling and use of firearms that prepares young men and women for careers in the police, corrections department and the Armed Forces,” he said. wrote in an NRA funding application.

Williams, the instructor at JROTC in Cape Coral, said the college is more than willing to publicize the NRA openly at its competitions, in exchange for the help it receives. “The NRA, specifically, is the biggest source of JROTC support that we rely on for our equipment,” he said.

According to him, the lack of objections from parents, students and educators against the program is a reflection of everything students learn with training that transcends simple shooting practice.

“We tell young people all the time, ‘If you’ve managed to improve your score, that’s great, but what we really want you to learn are some values. We want you to come out of this with some qualities that you can apply in real life. Focus, concentration , self-discipline and self-control. That’s what a marksman learns from marksmanship training”.