District’s Plan for School Rifle Team Draws Fire

The recent slew of high-profile shootings on school campuses around the nation has brought increased focus on the question of how to get weapons out of students’ hands.

And then there’s Bellflower.

The Bellflower school district is seeking a $17,000 National Rifle Assn. grant to start a high school rifle shooting team and gun safety program.

The proposal--which would be the first of its kind in Southern California by most accounts--is touching off a regionwide battle between gun enthusiasts and gun control advocates in this otherwise quiet town in the southeast corner of Los Angeles County.

The man behind the idea, Rick Royse--both an NRA member and a member of the Bellflower school board--argues that the best way to prevent gun violence is to teach children how to properly handle firearms. If in the process students excel at an activity enjoyed by thousands of other Americans, then all the better, he says.

“I am looking for a couple of Olympic-class shooters,” said Royse, whose proposal was passed by a 3-2 vote of the board in February.

Opponents say a school-sanctioned rifle team sends a mixed message to students about guns and violence, especially after several fatal schoolyard shootings this year. They include an incident in Pennsylvania in which a 14-year-old boy has been charged with gunning down a teacher and three others at a school dance in April, and the highly publicized Jonesboro, Ark., case in which two boys allegedly opened fire on a middle school campus, killing a teacher and four schoolmates in March.

“I cannot imagine a school district being so irresponsible,” said Billie Weiss, executive director of the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles, who is urging the district to reconsider its position. “My concern is making guns less available, not more. I wish we had $17,000 to start violence prevention programs.”

Royse, board President Jerry Cleveland and board member Harold Carman supported the shooting program, while board members G. “Petie” Anderson and Ruth Atherton opposed it.

The NRA Foundation, through its Friends of the NRA program, raises funds for various projects that promote the safe use of firearms and other NRA interests, including wildlife preservation efforts, said Bill Powers, NRA’s director of public affairs.

“A high school rifle team is probably one of the least troublesome activities young folks can get involved in,” Powers said.

The Bellflower grant has been approved by local NRA committees; it is awaiting final approval from the national office.

The money would go to purchase 10 competition-style, single-shot .22-caliber rifles, along with other equipment. The district would raise the rest of the money through booster clubs, Royse said.

Critics are unmoved. “There are other things that we can do in our public schools than hand rifles to students,” said Mary Leigh Blek, founder and chairman of the Orange County Citizens for the Prevention of Gun Violence.

Blek, who will be taking part in an anti-gun march Saturday in Los Angeles, said she worries about the proliferation of the gun culture in society.

“Teenagers are moody, and with guns you don’t get a second chance,” she said. “We are not talking about a basketball or a chessboard, we are talking about a lethal weapon.”

Joseph McNamara, a former San Jose police chief and research fellow with the Hoover Institution, which studies law enforcement matters, called the Bellflower proposal “most unfortunate. It seems to be the last thing we want to encourage our children to do is use firearms. There is always the possibility that some of the students who learn how to use the firearms may misuse that education in the future.”

Royse, who describes himself as a lifetime NRA member and avid hunter, tried to drum up support for the proposal by inviting fellow NRA members to the board’s April meeting. Among those who came was Kim Rhode, the El Monte teenager who won a gold medal in the Atlanta Olympics for trapshooting.

“I stand here as an example of how shooting has taught me to be a responsible and respectable individual,” she told the board.

However, most of those who spoke were from out of town, leading one resident to complain: “Mr. Royse, you were elected to represent the residents of Bellflower, not the NRA.”

Target shooting teams are fairly common in rural areas of the country, according to the National Education Assn.

But public school-sanctioned shooting teams are rare in California and nonexistent in Los Angeles and Orange counties, according to numerous education sources.

Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, a common program in high schools in Los Angeles, has marksmanship teams, but they use compressed air rifles. The switch was made a few years back because of the high cost of buying and storing gunpowder rifles, one official said.

In the San Luis Obispo County community of Templeton, a high school applied for the same kind of NRA grant Bellflower is seeking. However, after citizen opposition, the school board opted to use the money to buy instructional material on gun safety.

“The board member who introduced the proposal envisioned a rifle team, but it didn’t go over very well,” Templeton High School Principal Jim Fotinakes said.

In Bellflower, there is little awareness of the controversy among high school students. None of those interviewed knew about the proposal, but most agreed it was not something they need.

“There are plenty of other things we need,” said Bellflower High School senior Caesar Fortuno. “How about a swimming pool?”