Texas Schools Got $462,518 From NRA

Hundreds of U.S. schools have received a total of more than $7.3 million in grants from the National Rifle Association in recent years, according to an Associated Press analysis. Texas is third on the list with $462, 518 in grants, just behind California ($1,050,142), Florida ($992,752) and North Carolina ($545,817). The report states that about half the grant money goes toward JROTC programs while the other half is directed at youth programs.

The $7.3 million in NRA awards went to about 500 schools from 2010-2016, according to the AP’s report, written by Collin Binkley and Meghan Hoyer. The awards came mainly from the competitive grants from the NRA Foundation to promote shooting sports, according an analysis of the pro-gun group’s publicly available tax records.

Officials in most schools contacted by the AP said they’ll continue taking the grant money.

The Broward County school district in Florida will not. Students there have focused much of their anger at the NRA since Nikolas Cruz was arrested for killing 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14.

Cruz had been on a school rifle team that was funded with an NRA Foundation grant.

Denver’s school district also said it would turn down NRA grants awarded this year. Roseville schools near Sacramento, California, which received $230,000 in funding — more than any other district — told the AP it would assess whether to apply for funding in the future.

Donna Corbett, a Democrat on the school board in southern Indiana’s New Albany-Floyd County School Corporation, said she never heard about $65,000 that went to a JROTC program at one of the high schools but said she would raise the issue with her board.

“I am not a big NRA fan, but I also realize that ROTC is a good program,” she said. “I’m not sure I would be willing to pull it to the detriment of the kids and their programs.”

The grants awarded to schools are just a small share of the $61 million the NRA Foundation has given to a variety of local groups since 2010. But it has grown rapidly, increasing nearly fourfold from 2010 to 2014 in what some opponents say is a thinly veiled attempt to recruit the next generation of NRA members, the AP reported.

Aside from schools, other typical recipients include 4-H groups, which have received $12.2 million since 2010, Boy Scout troops and councils, which received $4 million, and private gun clubs. Overall, the AP reported, about half the grants go to programs directed at youth.

Nearly half of the 773 overall school grants have gone to JROTC programs, which put students through a basic military curriculum and offer an array of small competitive clubs, like the rifle team at Broward’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which Cruz had joined.

Lt. Colonel Ralph Ingles, head of the JROTC program at Albuquerque schools, told the AP the Florida shooting has sparked a conversation about NRA grants, but he doesn’t anticipate cutting ties anytime soon.

“I don’t see anybody really backing down,” he said. “I think it’s just ingrained that we’re going to continue to move forward in a positive direction.”

Grant funding to schools rose sharply in the years after the 2012 shooting at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, fueled in part by a program the NRA unrolled to help schools make safety improvements, the AP reported. Three districts received safety grants totaling $189,000 in 2014, tax records show, but none appears to have been awarded since then.

Grants are often provided as equipment rather than cash, with schools given rifles, ammunition, safety gear and updates to shooting ranges. Nationally, about $1.3 million was provided as cash, while $6 million was provided through equipment, training and other costs, according to the AP.

The AP said about three-fourths of the grant money went to states won by President Trump in the 2016 election and reflect a deep political divide in America. Most schools awarded grants are in medium-sized counties or rural areas, with few near major cities.

In heavily Democratic Massachusetts, known for its relatively strict gun laws, the AP found that no schools have received any NRA money since at least 2010.

“We were not interested in any way, shape or form endorsing the NRA or its philosophy,” Terry Ryan, a school board member in the Westford district northwest of Boston, told the AP.

However, in Louisiana’s Caddo Parish, a $24,000 grant to its officer training program helped it remain solvent. Other schools said the same.

“Everybody here has guns,” Caddo Parish parent Jana Cox told the AP. “This is north Louisiana. You’ve got a lot of hunters and you’ve got a lot of guns.”

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Image: Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre walks on stage prior to his remarks during the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center February 24, 2017 in National Harbor, Maryland. Hosted by the American Conservative Union, CPAC is an annual gathering of right wing politicians, commentators and their supporters. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)