Updated 10:50 a.m. ET: On NBC’s Meet the Press, National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre on Sunday refused to support new gun control legislation and maintained his support for putting armed guards and police in schools in response to the Dec. 14 school shootings in Newtown, Conn.

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“If it’s crazy to call for putting police in and securing our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy,” LaPierre told NBC’s David Gregory. “I think the American people think it’s crazy not to do it. It’s the one thing that would keep people safe and the NRA is going try to do that.”

He added that the United States is now spending $2 billion to train police officers in Iraq and asked why federal funds could not be spent to train school guards to protect schools in the United States.

Asked about restricting the size of ammunition magazine or clips, LaPierre said, “I don’t believe that’s going to make one difference. There are so many different ways to evade that, even if you had that. You had that for 10 years when (Sen.) Dianne Feinstein passed that ban in ’94. It was on the books. Columbine occurred right in the middle of it – it didn’t make any difference.”

Feinstein, D-Calif., was the author of the 1994 ban on certain types of semiautomatic firearms which expired in 2004. She has announced that she will introduce new legislation early next year. Semiautomatic firearms, including semiautomatic weapons sometimes called “assault weapons,” fire one round per pull of the trigger.

“I know there’s a media machine in this country that wants to blame guns every time something happens,” LaPierre said, but he insisted that an armed guard might have been able to stop Adam Lanza, the killer in Connecticut.

“If I’m a mom or a dad and I’m dropping my child off at school I’d feel a whole lot safer” if there were trained armed security guards or police protecting the school from people such as Lanza, LaPierre said, although he conceded that “nothing is perfect” as a deterrent against crime.

LaPierre also said, “We have a mental health system in this country that has completely and totally collapsed. We have no national database of these lunatics” and complained that de-institutionalization of the mentally ill had put too many dangerous people on the streets of America. “We have a completely cracked mentally ill system that’s got these monsters walking the streets,” LaPierre said.

And he said many states do not put their records of those adjudicated to be mentally ill into the national instant check system that is designed to screen out convicted criminals and the mentally ill from buying guns.

The NRA CEO also argued that the federal government had invested far too little effort into enforcing the longstanding federal law that makes it illegal for convicted felons to possess guns. The federal effort to enforce existing restrictions on gun possession, he said, is “pitiful.”

He said, “If you want to control violent criminals, take them off the street.”

But he firmly opposed curbs on private gun sales and contended that the advocates of stringent restrictions on such sales want to put “every gun sale under the thumb of the federal government.”

LaPierre called Feinstein’s bill “a phony piece of legislation” which he predicted would not become law.

President Barack Obama has tasked Vice President Joe Biden with the job of consulting with members of the Cabinet and outside organizations to come up with legislative proposals by next month.

When asked about this initiative, LaPierre said, “if it’s a panel that’s just going to be made up of a bunch of people that for the past 20 years has been trying to destroy the Second Amendment, I’m not interested in sitting on that panel…. The NRA is not going to let people lose the Second Amendment in this country.”

Following LaPierre on Meet the Press, Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y., said that the NRA leader is “so extreme and so tone deaf that he actually helps the cause of us passing sensible gun legislation in the Congress…. He is so doctrinaire and so adamant that I believe gun owners turn against him as well.”

Schumer said that LaPierre believes “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is good gun with a gun. What about trying to stop the bad guy from getting the gun in the first place? That’s common sense. Most Americans agree with it.”

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., said killers such as Lanza were “non-traditional criminals… people who are not wired right for some reason. And I don’t know if there’s anything Lindsey Graham can do in the Senate to stop mass murder from somebody that’s hell bent on doing crazy things” -- apart from better security in schools. The South Carolina Republican also called for getting “mass murders off the streets before they act, by better mental health detection.”

Graham said that while he was out Christmas shopping in South Carolina this weekend, people “have come up to me (and said) ‘Please don’t let the government take my guns away.’ And I’m going to stand against the assault (weapons) ban because it didn’t work before and it won’t work in the future.”

LaPierre’s appearance on Meet the Press followed the strong reaction over his defiant stand during a Friday press briefing about the NRA’s response to the Connecticut school shootings.

Amid a national debate over what security measures school administrators should take to ensure the safety of students, gun-control advocates reacted with disbelief Friday to LaPierre’s call for armed guards in every school and his blaming of Hollywood films, video games, and popular music for school shootings such as the one in Connecticut.

How firmly the NRA’s allies in Congress will oppose any new legislative initiatives from Obama, Feinstein or others remains an open question.

In a test of the NRA’s legislative influence, the House of Representatives late last year passed the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, which has not yet been acted on by the Senate.

In the House vote, 229 Republicans and 43 Democrats voted for the NRA-backed bill.

The House bill allows a person with a photo identification card and a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm in one state to carry a concealed handgun in another state in accordance with the restrictions of that second state.

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President Barack Obama empaneled a new task force led by Vice President Joe Biden to develop comprehensive proposals to address gun violence no later than next month.

In the wake of last week's shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., the president announced a new initiative that would include members of his cabinet and outside organizations to generate proposals to rein in gun violence. He said that any effort should include new restrictions on guns, but also improved access to mental health services and better management of violence in popular culture.

Obama vowed that the new task force would not be just another Washington commission, shorthand for the groups sometimes tasked with studying an issue or event but which often delay or dilute solutions long past the time when the original impetus for such a panel has passed.

Obama said he had asked Biden "to lead an effort that includes members of my cabinet and outside organizations to come up with a set of concrete proposals, no later than January," which the president would then push "without delay."

"This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read, and then pushed aside," the president said. "This is a team that has a very specific task: to pull together real reforms, right now."

Obama expressed support -- restating the position of his press secretary, Jay Carney -- for certain gun measures, including the assault weapons ban, limits on ammunition and closing a loophole allowing gun buyers to elude background checks at gun shows. But he stressed that those were only components of a broader effort to address violence.

The president suggested that stakeholders in those deliberations could possibly include the National Rifle Association -- the gun rights group that had gone silent in the wake of the Newtown shooting, but will hold a press conference on Friday. The president argued that mothers and fathers who compose the NRA's membership had also been impacted by the Newtown shooting.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden arrive at an announcement on gun reform in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House December 19, 2012 in Washington, DC.

"Their task is going to be to sift through every good idea that's out there, and even take a look at some bad ideas before disposing of them," Obama said of the task force's efforts.

Already, Democrats on Capitol Hill have started to initiate some gun control efforts in the aftermath of Newtown. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Wednesday for Republicans to bring up a vote on high-capacity ammunition magazines by this weekend. And West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D, introduced legislation to study the impact of violent video games on children.

Additionally, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has said she'll bring up a bill to reinstate the lapsed ban on assault weapons of the first day of the next Congress.

Few Republicans have stepped forward to embrace any of these gun measures, though, and have focused instead on the need for improved mental health services, or school safety.

Obama said his task force's proposals would make up part of his State of the Union address, and he expressed hope that the searing images from last week's shooting in Connecticut would last in the public conscious and help advance his eventual proposals.

"I would hope that our memories aren't so short that what we saw in Newtown isn't lingering with us -- that we don't remain passionate about it, only a month later," he said.

President Barack Obama is launching an administration-wide effort to curb gun violence, underscoring the growing political consensus over tightening gun restrictions following the horrific elementary school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

Obama is tasking Vice President Joe Biden, a longtime gun control advocate, with spearheading the effort.

In remarks from the White House on Wednesday, Obama will outline a process for pursuing policy changes following the school shooting, though he is not expected to call for specific measures.

Hunter Martin / Getty Images, file

Vice President Joe Biden

The president has vowed to use "whatever power this office holds" to safeguard the nation's children after Friday's shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.

Twenty children and six adults were killed at the school by a gunman carrying an arsenal of ammunition and a high-powered, military-style rifle.

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The incident has prompted several congressional gun rights supporters to consider new legislation to control firearms.

Many pro-gun lawmakers also have called for a greater focus on mental health issues and the impact of violent entertainment.

Obama also prefers a holistic approach, with aides saying stricter gun laws alone are not the answer.

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"It's a complex problem that requires more than one solution," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday. "It calls for not only re-examining our gun laws and how well we enforce them, but also for engaging mental health professionals, law enforcement officials, educators, parents and communities to find those solutions."

Still, much of the immediate focus after the shooting is on gun control, an issue that has been dormant in Washington for years. Obama expended little political capital on gun issues during his first term, despite several mass shootings, including a movie theater attack in Aurora, Colo., in the midst of this year's presidential campaign.

Obama's push on gun violence begins to take shape

The White House has begun to signal that Obama may be more proactive on gun issues following the murders of the elementary school youngsters, ages 6 and 7.

Carney said Obama was "actively supportive" of legislation to reinstate a ban on assault-style weapons that expired in 2004.

The president long has supported a ban, but exerted little effort to get it passed during his first term.

Obama also would support closing a gun-show loophole allowing people to buy arms from private dealers without background checks and would be interested in legislation limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines, Carney said. 

Updated 4:36 p.m. - A handful of pro-gun Democrats showed signs of willingness to consider strengthening regulations on firearms in the aftermath of last week’s elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

But that might not mean anything without the cooperation of Republicans, whose senior leaders and rank-and-file members have been mute about their interest in cooperating in a legislative effort to curb gun violence, making the prospects for any new, federal gun law unclear.

After President Barack Obama vowed at a vigil Sunday evening in Newtown to lead “an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” several Democrats with long track records of supporting gun rights said they would be willing to consider new proposals, like renewing the ban on assault weapons or limiting the capacity of ammunition magazines that are available for sale.

"Anyone saying they don't want to talk and sit down and have that type of dialogue is wrong," West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, D, said Monday morning on MSNBC. "Everything should be on the table."

That pronouncement carries a degree of weight, considering the source. Manchin has won endorsements and support from the National Rifle Association during his career, and even appeared in a 2010 campaign ad shooting a copy of the cap-and-trade environmental regulatory bill.

Another West Virginia Democrat, Rep. Nick Rahall, also suggested he was interested in action.

"As a lifelong defender of the Second Amendment, I believe that gun safety is essential, but, so is addressing the gaps in our mental health system and the issue of drugs and violence in our culture and prayer in our schools," he said in a statement. "Let us act deliberately, but, for the sake of too many already lost, let us act."

A Kentucky Democrat, Rep. John Yarmouth, a prior proponent of an assault weapons ban who hails from a Republican-leaning state, went so far as to apologize to the 27 victims of the Newtown shooting on Monday for not having pushed harder for new laws.

“I have been largely silent on the issue of gun violence over the past six years, and I am now as sorry for that as I am for what happened to the families who lost so much in this most recent, but sadly not isolated, tragedy,” he said in a statement.

And Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who has had an “A” rating from the NRA, called the Connecticut shooting a “game changer” in terms of gun control.

“I join with the president – and, I think reasonable people in both parties and the overwhelming majority of Americans who are gun owners who believe that we’ve got to put stricter rules on the books,” he told a CBS affiliate in Richmond.

One of the reasons major gun legislation hasn’t advanced through Congress in recent years is the increased number of gun-friendly Democrats elected from swing districts and more culturally conservative states. The influx of these pro-gun Democrats made new gun control regulations a virtual impossibility.

But no Republican leader – so far – has joined this Democratic chorus in calling for stricter control of guns in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre. And a new poll, conducted in the aftermath of the Connecticut incident and released on Monday, showed that opinion on gun laws had only shifted marginally in the days following this most recent mass shooting.

Fifty-four percent of Americans said in a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Monday that they favor stricter gun control laws – a slight uptick in the poll numbers preceding Newtown, but hardly near the 67 percent who favored tighter gun control in May 1999, following the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado. And more Americans – 49 percent – said the most effective way to curb gun violence is through enforcing existing laws, versus 32 percent who favor passing new laws.

That said, 52 percent of Americans now believe that the recent shootings are emblematic of larger problems in society, a sea change from July 2012, when 67 percent of Americans, in the aftermath of the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., said recent mass shootings were more likely the isolated acts of troubled individuals.

In the meanwhile, Democrats are girding for a potential fight in Congress next year over guns after California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D, said will introduce new legislation on the first day of the next Congress to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which lapsed in 2004. Other Democrats have discussed including rules to limit the capacity of ammunition magazines, or to address mental health.

One pro-gun Democrat who faces re-election in 2014, Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, emphasized mental health in a statement Monday and sidestepped any mention of guns. 

"After multiple tragedies across the country, there is no doubt that we must do more to keep our families and communities safe and that is why I believe we must start with the ever-pressing issue of mental health services in this country," he said.

Feinstein said Monday on MSNBC that she had called the president this morning to enlist his support for her bill, but hadn’t heard back.

"I'd like to talk to him about his help in moving forward with this,” she said.

Even after one of its members was shot and nearly killed last year by gunman Jared Loughner, Congress did not enact legislation to make it more difficult to buy or carry a gun.

In the immediate wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., it's too soon to know whether federal or state governments will enact new restrictions on gun purchases or ownership. It’s also too early to foresee whether Congress or state legislatures will enact new policies to deal with mentally ill Americans.

For better or worse, the new policies would need to be determined in the political arena, with electoral accountability, and most members of Congress have shown no interest in going beyond the last major legislation to regulate gun purchases or ownership in 1994.

President Barack Obama’s initial comment Friday afternoon at the White House suggested that he wishes the policy decisions could be made above or aside from politics. “We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics,” Obama said.

But the pattern of elected officials who saw the shootings as proof of the need for further restrictive legislation suggested that the politics haven’t changed in the past few years.

Those from the Northeast and California who've supported gun restriction measures in the past were the ones on Friday urging Congress to act:

• Rep. George Miller, D- Calif., said, “We must come together as a nation to honestly discuss how to prevent people intent on carrying out these savage attacks from so easily obtaining guns and ammunition.”
• Rep. Nita Loewy, D- N.Y., contended that “easy availability of the deadliest weapons to the most dangerous people has cost countless lives and caused immeasurable suffering, never more so than today. Our expressions of sympathy must be matched with concrete actions to stop gun violence.”
• Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested that “perhaps an awful tragedy like this will bring us together so we can do what it takes to prevent this horror from being repeated again."
• And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a potential 2016 Democratic presidential contender, said the nation must “once and for all crack down on the guns that have cost the lives of far too many innocent Americans. Let this terrible tragedy finally be the wake-up call for aggressive action and I pledge my full support in that effort.”

But a guarded response came from another Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, the state where 12 people were shot at a movie theater last July.

“I guarantee someone is going to come forward and say that the guards in the schools if people had guns everywhere there would be greater protection,” Hickenlooper observed at a press conference. “I am not opposing that, I am just saying you are going to hear every color under the spectrum over the next few months.”

There is legislation that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could bring to the floor: Schumer’s bill to withhold federal law enforcement funds from states that do not fully report their background check information on would-be gun buyers to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Schumer would also require colleges and universities that receive federal funding to implement a mental health assessment plan to identify students who pose a safety risk to themselves or others. And his bill would impose back check requirements on most private sales or transfers of guns.

Pivotal players in any legislative action would be the half dozen Democratic senators up for re-election in 2014 who represent states that tend to be more protective of gun owners’ rights: Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska.

Begich introduced a bill last year to liberalize interstate firearms sales, a measure supported by the National Rifle Association.

“Current laws restricting interstate commerce of firearms not only lag behind common sense and new technology, they are unfair and burdensome," Begich said at the time. "This legislation cleans up decades-old laws that are unnecessarily restricting the rights of Alaskans and other Americans to purchase and sell firearms."

Begich contends that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System has made restrictions enacted in the 1968 Gun Control Act obsolete.

Two other Democrats also crucial to any Senate action would be Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and senator-elect Joe Donnelly of Indiana.

The NRA endorsed Donnelly in his 2008 and 2010 House races. Last June, Donnelly backed a measure the NRA strongly supported, voting to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not turning over documents about the “Fast and Furious” gun-tracking operation.

Any effort to pass a gun control measure would be a test of clout and lobbying power, which the NRA undoubtedly has.

Whether Obama decides that he wants to lead an effort to persuade Congress to enact new measures to limit access to guns may in part depend on how the public responds in the next week.

Obama knows from his own experience in 2008 how sensitive the gun issue can be. In the midst of his struggle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Obama made a comment about Americans living in small towns with high unemployment. These people, he said, “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them … .”

That comment immediately drew sharp criticism from Clinton. The anger and sarcasm of Obama’s counter-response seemed to indicate the pressure he felt. “She is running around talking about how this (his ‘cling to guns’ remark) is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment,” he said at a campaign rally. “She's talking like she's Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton is out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday. She's packing a six-shooter.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama wipes his eye as he speaks during a previously unannounced appearance in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House on Dec. 4, 2012

An emotional President Barack Obama led the nation in mourning the victims of an elementary school massacre on Friday, speaking from the White House following the shooting in Newtown, Conn.

The president not only pledged to assist investigations into the shooting, but also became openly emotional upon reflecting upon the many school children killed or injured in today's mass shooting.

"The majority of those who died today were children -- beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10-years-old," he said, pausing to wipe away a tear. "They had their entire lives ahead of them -- birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own."

"Our hearts are broken today, for the parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children," Obama added, "as well as the families of the adults who were lost."

The president said that he has become all too familiar with making statements of grief following mass shooting incidents, referencing recent events at a mall this week in Oregon, at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in August, and at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in August.

RELATED: The latest news on the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting

Those events -- along with a January 2011 attack in Arizona that severely injured then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and left six others dead -- have done little to provoke political action to rein in gun violence.

"As a country, we have been through this too many times," he said.

In his remarks Friday, the president suggested that the time might have come for some sort of work to prevent similar tragedies.

"We're going to have to come together to take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics," he said.

Slideshow: Connecticut school massacre

Michelle Mcloughlin / Reuters

The second deadliest school shooting in U.S. history sent crying children spilling into the school parking lot as frightened parents waited for word on their loved ones.

Launch slideshow

In the meanwhile, the president said he was in contact with Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy and other government officials to provide them with adequate resources. Obama also ordered that flags be flown at half-staff through sunset on Dec. 18.

"While nothing can fill the space of a lost loved one or a child, all of us can extend a hand to those in need," reminded the president.