ASA HUTCHINSON:And where we're going in my judgment is Congress will debate, as they always debate, and what you can agree upon is some real measures that we have recommended for funding, for better coordination, for some changes in laws to provide for the school safety equation.

That's where I think we can reach agreement now. The rest is going to be an ongoing debate.

JUDY WOODRUFF:Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson, thank you very much for talking with us.

ASA HUTCHINSON:Thank you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF:And now for a different view.

Mark Glaze is the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group of 900 mayors, including New York's Michael Bloomberg, advocating for changes to federal and state laws.

Mark Glaze, welcome to the NewsHour.

What do you make of this proposal by the group? It was under the auspices of the NRA. It was led by former Congressman Hutchinson. It's a package of proposals that includes one that would train armed guards and ideally have them in every school.

MARK GLAZE, Executive Director, Mayors Against Illegal Guns: Well, it's a solution that nobody wants who is knowledgeable on the subject. Police think it's a bad idea. Teachers came out against it.

They don't want these guns in their classrooms. They think the answer is better background checks and tougher gun laws to keep guns away from people who shouldn't have them so they don't wind up in the schools killing 20 kids my son's age.

But it's altogether typical of the way the NRA has done business for a generation. It's legitimately their view that an armed society is a safe society and that the only answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But the irony of this is that we have so many guns in our society, around 300 million, because the NRA has systematically whittled away at modest restrictions, so that they can now make the argument that, with so many guns out there, you're never going to get them out of the hands of criminals. We had better arm everybody.

JUDY WOODRUFF:But they say—you heard what he was saying. Among other things, he's saying it would serve as a deterrent.

If someone has the intention of going into a school, harming children, harming anyone, knowing someone is there with a gun is much more likely to keep somebody from doing that. It would at least cause them to think twice.

MARK GLAZE:You know, it's possible, but if you look at the mass shootings that we have had recently, they're all young men who are deeply troubled.

And you have to ask yourself whether, you know, the Columbine shooters who actually went into a school that they attended and presumably knew there were armed guards there, though they may not, Virginia Tech, big security on the campus there—if people are as troubled as they have to be to do the things that young men have done in recent years, I don't know that an armed guard is going to stop them.

JUDY WOODRUFF:What about his argument, though, that this is an important part of a package that would make schools safer? They are talking about other steps as well.

MARK GLAZE:Well, I think that having armed guards in schools is something that school districts should have the choice to make. And some of them do.

I know that some of our mayors in Michigan have had off-duty police officers in the classroom for a long time. And there's a general sense that there's a greater sense of comfort having police there than paid security guards.

But I have to point out one last irony, that he assured people during the course of this event today that these security guards would be vetted, they would be safe because they would be given background checks, presumably to make sure that they were not felons or domestic violence perpetrators or seriously mentally ill, and could therefore carry a gun.

JUDY WOODRUFF:Let me broaden this out, Mark Glaze, and ask you about the overall effort to pass gun control legislation.

What has happened to the momentum? After the Sandy Hook shooting back in December, there was a lot of -- it felt like there was momentum to do something about guns. Today, as Congress takes up legislation, we know that, as we mentioned, no assault weapons ban is included. A ban on or restrictions on high-capacity magazines are no longer included. What happened to that momentum?

MARK GLAZE:Well, I think that people who thought this would be quick or easy have not followed this issue and have not really followed the Congress recently.

I mean, Congress recently took more than 500 days to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which is, after all, about what it sounds like. It's about helping women against whom violence has been perpetrated. I never thought that this would be done immediately or very easily.

I think what has happened is that a lot of senators and House members are still kind of living in a bygone era, when the NRA was the only game in town. Many of the senators who have not committed themselves or have said they will not have accepted a lot of NRA money and have known for a generation that there wasn't a lot of political support or much grassroots activism on our side of the ledger.

That's one of the things that our mayors and 1.5 million grassroots supporters, many of whom came to us after the Newtown shooting, are trying to change. But this is going to take some time. I do think we will pass a very good background check bill and a good trafficking bill.

JUDY WOODRUFF:Is that now the focus of your efforts and other gun control groups to just—mainly get background checks through? Is that what it's come down to?

MARK GLAZE:Well, we think it's really important that assault weapons and also high-capacity magazines, which are after all what make mass shootings mass—one person can fire for as long as they can as long as they have bullets, and they will have a lot of bullets.

But we have always said that the biggest solution, if you had to choose just one, is making sure everybody gets a background check, because, you know, well over 90 percent of the firearms fatalities in this country are related to handguns, and not to assault weapons. And the best way to address that without getting in the way of what you or I can do with a gun dealer is to make sure you can pass a background check.

JUDY WOODRUFF:We heard the comment just now from Asa Hutchinson, but you also hear it from some Democrats, from, shall we say, gun rights' parts of the country, who say having the mayor of New York City as the face of the movement, part of this movement anyway, is—may not be helpful, that there are folks who care about gun rights and they would rather see somebody who understands that culture leading the charge on this.

MARK GLAZE:Well, you know, Mayor Bloomberg may not sell in some of those places in the same way Wayne LaPierre doesn't sell in other parts of the country.

You can't make the mistake of tying the principle and the debate to some of the people who are involved in it. Mayor Bloomberg is the co-chair of a coalition that has almost 1,000 mayors in it today. More than 100 of them are Republicans. They're very different people who are all unified by one thing, that you can actually support the Second Amendment and have no intention of taking people's guns away, but still do much more to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

So, I think people ought to focus on kind of the coalition and the ideas, rather than trying to demonize the person.

JUDY WOODRUFF:Finally, just—and just quickly, we mentioned states like Connecticut passing tougher gun control. But there are other states that are pushing back and loosening restrictions on guns.

Could you end up losing the battle in the states at the same—you know, at the same time you're trying to focus on Washington?

MARK GLAZE:No, I don't think so.

In fact, there's been a shift. The NRA has done most of the bad work that it's done under the radar and without us in Washington noticing for the past 10 or 15 years. I mean, state by state by state, they have methodically passed outrageous laws like the stand your ground law that resulted in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, and no arrest for more than a month for the perpetrator, though he may not end up being guilty.

They have done this across a range of issues. And so the fact that you're actually seeing some pushback and seeing some good laws passed, including in my home state of Colorado, which has a very strong libertarian streak and a high tradition of gun ownership, if you can do it there, you can probably do it anywhere.

JUDY WOODRUFF:Mark Glaze with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, thank you for being with us.

MARK GLAZE:Thank you.

MARGARET WARNER:Follow our ongoing coverage of the guns debate on our home page.