The NRA's proposal is bizarre and tone-deaf, but it might be smart message strategy. By calling for lawful and regulated armed defense of schools, the NRA might be hoping it will cause some portion of those who claim to be in favor of "common-sense gun control" to admit that they'll only be happy when everyone, including cops, are disarmed.
It's impossible to believe that armed police officers protecting a school would make kids less safe unless you also believe that all guns are dangerous, regardless of whose hands they're in. And whether that proposition is empirically true or good policy or not, it's a marginal one. I don't think the NRA intends to get this boondoggle passed. Instead, it wants to steer the debate away from whether limits on magazine capacity and military-style rifles are sensible (where it loses) and towards whether armed police are good public policy (where it wins).
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