North Carolina sheriff stocking schools with AR-15 rifles

MARSHALL, N.C. (AP) — When schools in one North Carolina county reopen later this month, new security measures will include stocking AR-15 rifles for school resource officers to use in the event of an active shooter.

Spurred by the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead in May, school officials and Madison County Sheriff Buddy Harwood have placed one of the semiautomatic rifles in each of the county's six schools. Each of the guns will be locked inside a safe, Harwood said.

The North Carolina school district and sheriff's office are collaborating to enhance security after the Uvalde shooting revealed systemic failures and “egregiously poor decision-making,” resulting in more than an hour of chaos before the gunman was finally confronted and killed by law enforcement, according to a report written by an investigative committee from the Texas House of Representatives.

“Those officers were in that building for so long, and that suspect was able to infiltrate that building and injure and kill so many kids,” Harwood told the Asheville Citizen Times. “I just want to make sure my deputies are prepared in the event that happens.”

The idea of having AR-15s in schools does not sit well with Dorothy Espelage, a UNC Chapel Hill professor in the School of Education who has conducted decades of study and research on school safety and student well-being.

“What’s going to happen is we’re going to have accidents with these guns," Espelage told WLOS-TV. Just the presence of an SRO increases violence in the schools. There’s more arrests of kids. Why is it that they have to have these AR-15s? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Madison County Schools Superintendent Will Hoffman said school administrators have been meeting regularly with local...