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Federal

Arne Duncan in the NRA’s Cross Hairs

By Michele McNeil — March 30, 2009 1 min read
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The National Rifle Association’s monthly magazine has deemed Education Secretary Arne Duncan the “most anti-gun” member of President Obama’s cabinet.

The America’s First Freedom magazine devotes its cover story, a four-page spread called “Education at the Extremez”, to Duncan.

The magazine labels Duncan as such because the new education secretary, when he was superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, declared that children and guns don’t mix--and even won an award from the anti-gun lobby (which Duncan touts in his official biography.) The article also calls Duncan out for encouraging students to participate in a poetry, art, and essay contest about anti-handgun violence. And the author warns that Duncan, even as education secretary, can have a big influence on federal gun policy.

The article reads:

He can incessantly and hysterically use his bully pulpit to promote repressive gun control as an absolute necessity "for the children." ... What he has done to support the gun-ban movement in Illinois he can now do on a vastly larger scale. Moreover, the Department of Education publishes a vast amount of regulations and policy guidelines that affect public schools through the nation. There is every reason to be concerned that Duncan will turn the Department of Education into a tool to promote a gun-ban agenda in America's public schools...

Although Duncan is sure to take a lot of heat for big decisions he makes as education secretary, keeping guns out of schools probably won’t be one of them.

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