Arizona sheriffs and the state’s attorney general are pushing controversial programs to allow school officials and volunteers to carry guns in the wake of the shootings at a Connecticut school that left 20 children dead.

The latest proposal comes from Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the self-described toughest sheriff in America, who wants to station his “posse” of volunteers outside of about 50 schools in Maricopa County within a week, according to KPNX, a local NBC station.

“Everybody else is talking about what their ideas are. They want new laws. This is immediate. I don't need a new law to send out my posse,” he told NBC affiliate, KPNX, on Thursday. “I feel like we should do whatever we can outside of the schools.”

Arpaio’s volunteers number about 3,000, with 300 to 400 carrying weapons. They log about 100 hours of training and undergo background checks, just like deputies, according to KPNX.

He first sent out his posse in 1993 to guard malls over the holiday season because of violence at those venues in the past. He believed that program worked, saying there have been zero violent re-occurrences, azfamily.com reported.

Arpaio’s plan follows similar ones released earlier this week: Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has proposed arming willing principals, according to ABC15.com, while Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said he wanted to arm a designated employee in every school, KPNX reported.

“Why not use these people we trust if they are willing to protect themselves and our children?” Babeu said.

Horne said a few counties have indicated they’d like to sign up for his program, though state law currently prohibits having firearms on public school campuses. Horne said he already has a sponsor for the necessary state legislation to implement his plan.

Anti-gun advocates and former educators denounced the idea of arming school staffers. Geraldine Hills, of Arizonans for Gun Safety, called it “outrageous.”

“Cops aren’t teachers, teachers aren’t cops,” she told KPNX. “It’s a very nice what-if scenario, this fantasy of the armed civilian hero. It doesn’t play out in real life.”

“I don’t feel that I would want to be in a position of being responsible for either a concealed weapon or securing a weapon on campus,” Gregg Baumgarten, a former principle outside of Phoenix, told the station. “I just think it’s a recipe for disaster.”

The Arizona officials’ stance echoed that of the National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre, who said he supported putting armed guards and police in schools in response to the Newtown shootings in which the gunman, Adam Lanza, also shot six administrators dead. Police say Lanza shot his mother to death earlier at their home.

“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.”

Some districts said they were preparing to take LaPierre’s recommended action, while other educators cautioned that doing so would send the wrong message about education.

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Maricopa County Sheriff via AP file

Michael Marin

Investigators believe a defendant killed himself in a Phoenix courtroom shortly after a jury found him guilty of arson, saying their theory is backed up by evidence that includes a canister labeled "cyanide" found in his vehicle more than a week after his death.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Tuesday that the family of Michael Marin, 53, received a delayed email from Marin the night after his June 28 death in court. The email led investigators to the vehicle, where they found the canister. It was turned over to the medical examiner's office unopened.

Cari Gerchick, communications director for Maricopa County, said the medical examiner's office could not immediately confirm if the canister indeed contains cyanide. Gerchick said the medical examiner's office is still determining Marin's cause and manner of death.

The email also included information about his will in case things went poorly, Arpaio said.

After being convicted of deliberately burning down his $3.5 million Phoenix mansion, Marin collapsed in court and died.

At the time of his collapse, the judge was ordering that Marin be remanded into our custody, Capt. Brian Lee told Reuters.

"It's really sad," Arpaio said Tuesday, according to AZfamily.com.

"You have to feel bad for the family. I don't know why he did it," he added.

According to AZfamily.com, Arpaio said the poison was purchased for $68 from a California-based supplier in 2011 with Marin's personal credit card.

Video from inside the courtroom showed Marin putting his hands over his eyes after the guilty verdict was read and then covering his mouth with both hands.

Arizona man dies after arson conviction: police

AP Photo/Phoenix Fire Department

This July 2009 image provided by the Phoenix Fire Department shows the burned $3.5 million Phoenix mansion owned by Michael Marin.

Marin's mansion burned down in July 2009. "Marin couldn't pay his mortgage, so he burned down his house," the Arizona Republic newspaper quoted the prosecution as saying.

The newspaper reported that Marin barely escaped by climbing down a rope ladder from the second floor while wearing a scuba tank and diving mask to protect him from smoke inhalation.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Matt York / AP

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Escalating a long-running battle with the outspoken sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, the Justice Department on Thursday sued him, his office and the county over civil rights issues involving racial profiling.

"The police are supposed to protect and serve our communities, not divide them. This is an abuse of power case," said Tom Perez, the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

"If you look Latino, you are fair game," he said.

The county has refused to impose a program, proposed by the Obama administration, that would train deputies on how to make traffic stops without improperly targeting Latinos. "They're telling me how to run my organization. I'm not going to give up my authority to the federal government," Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday before the lawsuit was filed.

The Justice Department claims that since 2006, Maricopa County sheriff's officers unfairly have targeted Latinos for traffic stops -- unlawfully detaining, searching and arresting people, many of whom turn out to be US citizens or legal residents.

The lawsuit claims that the Sheriff's Office discriminates against jail inmates who have trouble speaking English. Commands are issued only in English, and when prisoners who don't understand them fail to comply, entire areas of a jail are put in lockdown, inciting "obvious hostility," Perez said.

He said Latino jail inmates are also forced to sign English-language legal documents in which they forfeit key legal protections.

A third category of improper conduct, the lawsuit says, involves retaliation by the Sheriff's Office against perceived critics, including judges, lawyers, and community leaders.

"They have been subject to actions designed to silence and punish them, including wrongful arrests and baseless lawsuits," Perez said.

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PHOENIX – Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday unveiled preliminary results of an investigation, conducted by members of his volunteer task force, into the authenticity of President Barack Obama's birth certificate, a controversy that has been widely debunked but that remains alive for the so-called birther movement.

At a news conference, Arpaio, whose office is facing a federal inquiry involving alleged racial profiling, said the probe revealed that there was probable cause to believe Obama's long-form birth certificate released by the White House in April is a computer-generated forgery. He also said the selective service card completed by Obama in 1980 in Hawaii also was most likely a forgery.

"We don't know who the perpetrators are of these documents," Arpaio said, although he said he doesn't think the president forged the documents.

On Thursday, Obama's campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt offered a light-hearted dismissal of Arpaio's probe — he tweeted what he referred to as a "live link" to the sheriff's news conference, but instead provided a link to a snippet of the old conspiracy-theory based TV series, "The X-Files."

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio talks to reporters about the birth certificate investigation.

The sheriff said a forensic examination of the electronic document that the White House provided last year proves that it was not simply scanned to create a computer file but rather assembled from several pieces, East Valley Tribune.com reported.

Arpaio's probe comes amid a federal grand jury investigation into the sheriff's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009, focusing on the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad. Separately, the U.S. Justice Department has accused Arpaio's office of racially profiling Latinos, basing immigration enforcement on racially charged citizen complaints and punishing Hispanic jail inmates for speaking Spanish. Arpaio denies the allegations and said the investigation is politically motivated.

Earlier Thursday, the 79-year-old Republican sheriff defended his need to spearhead the investigation into Obama's birth certificate by saying that nearly 250 people connected to a conservative Arizona Tea Party group requested one last summer.

"I'm not going after Obama," said Arpaio, who has criticized the president's administration for cutting off his federal immigration powers and conducting the civil rights investigation of his office. "I'm just doing my job."

Speculation about Obama's birthplace has swirled among conservatives for years. "Birthers" maintain that Obama is ineligible to hold the country's highest elected office because, they contend, he was born in Kenya, his father's homeland. Some contend Obama's birth certificate must be a fake.

Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed that Obama was born there, meaning he's a native-born American, and Obama released a copy of his long-form birth certificate in April. Courts also have rebuffed lawsuits over the issue. Of late, the president's re-election campaign has poked fun at it, selling coffee cups with a picture of the president's birth record.

Some critics suggest Arpaio's aim is to divert attention from his own legal troubles while raising his political profile as he seeks a sixth term this year. The sheriff vehemently denies such strategies are in play.

Critics also have sought Arpaio's resignation over allegations that more than 400 sex-crimes cases over a three-year period ending in 2007 were either inadequately investigated or weren't investigated at all by the Sheriff's Office after the crimes were reported. The Sheriff's Office said the backlog was cleared up after the problem was brought to Arpaio's attention.

Arpaio has said he took deliberate steps to avoid the appearance that his investigation is politically motivated. Instead of using taxpayer money, the sheriff farmed it out to lawyers and retired police officers who are volunteers in a posse that examines cold cases for him. Other posses assist deputies in duties that include providing free police protection at malls during the holiday season or transporting people to jail.

The sheriff remains popular among Republicans. GOP presidential candidates have courted his endorsement throughout the primary season. At last week's Republican presidential debate in Arizona, Arpaio won loud cheers. During a question about Arizona's border woes, former Sen. Rick Santorum said the government ought to give local police agencies the chance to enforce immigration law as Arpaio has.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio stands in front of a sign touting the number of inmates held at "Tent City" over 19 years.

Inspired by McDonald's, the sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County on Monday had a sign made that touts the fact that more than 430,000 inmates have been "served" by his controversial "Tent City" jail.

"Why would anyone call for an end to this program and the closure of Tent City?" Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in a statement announcing the sign. "Tent City makes room for inmates who otherwise might be released to the streets due to overcrowded jails. It’s one of the best things to have happened in the local criminal justice system."

The sheriff's department described Tent City, which is nearing its 19th year, as "the nation’s largest canvas incarceration compound".

"Borrowing from the world’s most renowned fast food chain," the department added, the sign will be updated monthly with the latest number of inmates "Served".

Arpaio, renowned for his tough stand on illegal immigrants, had the sign built "to underscore that Tent City remains an excellent facility to safely and cost effectively house inmates," the department stated. It’s such an efficient program, Arpaio points out, that it has been visited by four U.S. presidential candidates and a number of senators from several states.

More than 430,000 inmates have "served" their time in Tent City, which began in 1993 and is made up of Korean War tents, the department said.

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