Lead gun group tells Piers Morgan that Sandy Hook teachers should have been armed

12/19/2012 9:00am by 42

UPDATE: Video has been fixed.

Larry Pratt of the Gun Owners of America, a group that makes the NRA look nice, thinks that gun control advocates are responsible for the murder of those twenty children in Sandy Hook.

Pratt appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan show last night. Here are a few quotes, then the two videos following:

“Since we have concealed carry laws in all of our country now, people can get a concealed firearm. And yet, we have laws that say not in schools,” the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America said. “And so in the very places that have been sought out by monsters such as the murderer of these adults and children, we’re saying, ‘no, we don’t want you to be able to defend yourself. It’s better that you just sit there and wait to be killed.’ And we find that morally incomprehensible.”

Pratt says he’s deeply disturbed by the anti-gun supporters. It’s “deeply disturbing, that the desire to defend life has been so cast aside. And to whatever political correctness views guns as the ultimate evil. Evil’s in our hearts. Not in the guns.”

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@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and .

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  • http://www.facebook.com/michelle.liddell.75 Michelle Liddell

    If they have the right to bear arms, does that mean they can carry a nuke ? what is allowed or not allowed

  • http://www.facebook.com/michelle.liddell.75 Michelle Liddell

    Why is a bill of right from 1789 applicable NOW in 2012. They barely had gun powder ?

  • bejammin075

    Wouldn’t all these extra teacher guns and teacher gun training require a local tax hike? Or should we just carve that out of the existing educational budget?

  • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

    “Pratt says he’s deeply disturbed” Ain’t that the truth. Why does a Murdock hack like Piers Morgan have any credibility?

  • chrislib

    I’m a well-armed and skilled retired teacher who wonders where teachers should keep firearms so that students can’t get at them.

    • Outspoken1

      And the training to shoot and the legal liability and the ….Oh yea, the bullet-resistant vest.

    • Naja pallida

      They would need to be kept on the person at all times. What good is a gun locked away in a drawer somewhere, when someone might come storming in with an assault rifle at any moment?

  • hduff

    John thanks for posting the two videos. Sadly you (IMO) wasted some of your time. I couldn’t stand listening to this stupid ass (Pratt) less than 30 seconds into the first video.

    Two quick points.

    One. Why don’t we have guns in both chambers of congress? To make them safer?

    Two. So now we want to arm the belittled members of teachers unions. Now those same teachers who have had their rights (to associate and assemble) taken away by right wing attacks… now we want to arm them so they can protect our kids. Is there ANY limits to the right wing hypocrisy.

    • urallnuts

      Yes there is. Parents of children getting paid for there fake grief. Disgusting..

  • Jerrold

    Experiment huh? Its people like you that fail our society daily. Maybe you can go back to britian with piers when we throw his treasonist ass out of the country.

  • nicho

    The Constitution was an experiment — not a divinely inspired document. It’s clearly flawed in the case of the Second Amendment. It’s tearing our country apart. We need to fix it. Period. If we can’t protect our children, we are a failed society. (And the answer is not turning our schools into maximum security prisons.)

    • HolyMoly

      I think the Second Amendment is fine as it stands. The problem, in my opinion, is the incorrect interpretation of the amendment. The clause at the beginning of the sentence has been totally ignored in favor of expanding the profits of gun manufacturers. That clause clarifies the intent of the right to bear arms: For the “security of a free state,” and further clarifies the vehicle by which this security is to be attained: Via a “well regulated militia” i.e., the Virginia National Guard, Texas National Guard, etc….NOT Bubba Joe’s Freedom Militia out in the woods somewhere, which is NOT well regulated.

      The other part of the amendment, that this right “shall not be infringed” — “infringe” means to break or disobey. To me this means to take this right away completely. When combined with the words “well regulated,” I take this to mean that limitations are well within the scope of the federal government, and consistent with the Constitution. So criminal background checks, mental evaluations, a gun owner’s safety course, limits on the number and type of weapons a person can own, and a waiting period (really, if someone walks into a gun shop and says, “I need a gun, and I need it TODAY!” wouldn’t that raise a few red flags?) are all constitutional.

      If you want to add an amendment to the Constitution that further clarifies its intent, or modernizes its intent with regard to the fact that the Founders had no earthly idea the type of weapons we’d have just 200+ years later, then that would be fine. But I think the amendment as it stands says it all. It’s the laws on the books that really need to be changed and made more strict and effective.

      • nicho

        If it can be seriously misinterpreted, the amendment is fatally flawed as it stands. It needs to be stated quite clearly what it means and not left in some woo-woo land. One child in the US is killed with a gun every three hours. We need to stop that. When Australia imposed restrictive gun laws in 1997, mass shootings stopped immediately.

        • Litterbox

          I think we should have a reasoned, well thought out discussion on gun control and the lives lost to those that use guns when we start to do something about all the DWI deaths in America and elsewhere which greatly outnumber gun deaths.

          • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

            You certainly are consistent L Box.

          • HolyMoly

            DUI-related deaths don’t “greatly” outnumber gun-related deaths. Any number I’ve seen they’re statistically pretty close. Not to mention, the CDC estimates that by 2015 gun deaths will surpass drunk driving deaths:

            http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/gun-deaths-set-outstrip-car-fatalities-first-time-152632492.html?.tsrc=lgwn

            But this is a false equivalency anyhow. Apples to oranges. Hell, deaths related to old age vastly outnumbers drunk-driving and gun-related deaths combined. Maybe we shouldn’t tackle either one of those issues until we address the old-age problem. What you’re suggesting, though, is to hold one issue hostage (where people are dying) in lieu of addressing another issue. They’re separate issues, and they can both be addressed separately; they are not dependent on one another. In fact, drunk driving HAS been addressed aggressively and continues to be…that’s why the rate of deaths has decreased every year for the past 30+ years. Now on to guns.

            What is the purpose of a car? Transportation. And we require education, testing, licensing, waiting periods (you must use a permit for a period of time before you get your license) to regulate their use. We also have limitations on what TYPE of cars are allowed on the road (“street legal”). Anyone who drives a motorcycle or a vehicle with large gross weight is required to obtain further education, followed by further testing, and special licensing, and in the case of semi drivers and bus drivers, limitations on how many hours they’re allowed to drive in a 24 hour period. Those guilty of driving under the influence are — and should be — punished, from loss of a license to jail time. And thanks to stricter drunk driving laws, the rate of deaths has DECREASED every year since the early 1980s, from over 26,000 in 1982 to under 13,000 in 2009. Seems to me like we’ve been addressing this issue.

            What is the purpose of a gun? To kill, whether it’s an animal or another person. A totally different animal than a car. So, required education, testing, mental evaluations, licensing, waiting periods, etc. are not unreasonable. As to the types of weapons, special licenses to own certain classes of weapons is not unreasonable.

        • uraloser

          You ma’am are a liar.

        • Naja pallida

          Well, the fundamental problem being that the Constitution was always intended to be a living document, updated as times changed… but they made the mechanism for allowing it to be so virtually impossible. Especially as the country grew and suffrage expanded. Now, we’re a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporate interests, and nothing can get done to the benefit of the entire nation because it might cost some corporation some money.

          If any of our founding fathers were alive today, they’d probably think that the country they helped found has become a sad parody of itself. Incapable of addressing the obvious problem of our own children being slaughtered in our schools.

  • colleen2

    This rationale is predicated on the notion that white Republican males are ‘protective’ with their guns. Some research and analysis of how the syg laws have been implemented and used should provide a great example of how far south the conservative rationale of ‘protection’ has taken them.

    • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

      “should provide a great example of how far south the conservative rationale of ‘protection’ has taken them”——.Probably Civil War, I should imagine, if history is any clue.

  • Diderotfan

    OK, gun nuts. You say you have a Second Amendment right at stake? Well that amendment only says you have a right to bear “arms”, it doesn’t state what kind. So how about we get a federal law passed that says you get a one shot, black powder propelled musket of the precise caliber and style as existed in 1789? That should be perfectly okay with “originalists” like Scalia, too, since the Constitution–according to him–is a “dead, dead, dead document”–and means exactly what it meant in 1789. Or maybe we’ll just limit you to a tomahawk and scalping knife, since those were the three items “well regulated Militia” members were required to provide in 1789 America.

    • Litterbox

      United States v. Miller limits the type of weapons to which the 2nd Amendment
      applies to those in common use for lawful purposes, but does not limit
      the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes. Try again.

      • HolyMoly

        Then a law stating that the “lawful purpose” of assault rifles and extended clips is for military use only would be fine with you. Thanks for clarifying.

        • Litterbox

          Do you know what a lawful purpose is? Do you even know what an assault rifle is? The military does not use ‘extended’ clips. You have all the buzz words down, but don’t seem to understand the issue….

          • HolyMoly

            Why yes, I know what an assault rifle is and how to use one….I used the M-16 for 6 years. I also know their purpose. Assault rifles were DESIGNED for military use, not civilian use. Therefore a law making that stipulation is appropriate (i.e., ban the sale or private ownership of assault rifles). As for extended clips, to the extent that they exist, the law should reflect that they are not for civilian use. Whether the military uses them or not is up to them, but it should be reserved for their use only. As for lawful purpose, home defense does not require assault rifles, unless you expect the Mexican drug cartel to come knocking on your door..in which case, you need to rethink the type of people you choose to associate with. Assault rifles, or in the case of US v Miller, sawed-off shotguns, can be considered by law not to be an applicable weapon for self-defense. As for ad hominems, I’ll leave that to you.

            • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

              Thank you! I’ll be happy to send along some Troll ad hominems. Litterbox probably thinks he/she is is mind field.

          • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

            How ironic that someone with a name like litterbox has the temerity to condescend. We’d rather not go to that level for obvious reasons—pheww!

        • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

          If you stir that litterbox with a stick you’ll find nothing but catty bS.

      • diderotfan

        Your name is my answer.

    • Paul

      So does that mean that the government can ban radios, TV’s, and the internet? Those weren’t around when the Founders guaranteed freedom of the press.

      • KingCranky

        No, it means only that the “Constitutios originalists” should, if they’re logically consistent, live by the same exact conditions which existed when the Constitution was adopted.

        If they don’t, they’re hypocrites.

        • Paul

          No, not really. “Arms” in the legal sense of the word means “weapons.” If the Founders wanted us to just have smoothbore muskets, they would have said smoothbore muskets, because pistols and rifles were used during the Revolutionary War. Following your logic, us original constitutionalists should want to ban TV, radio, the internet, and any religion developed after the Constitution was written. They gave us freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms, not freedom of newspapers, freedom of pre-19th century religion, and the right to keep and bear smoothbore muskets.

          • KingCranky

            It’s not my logic about believing the Constitution can’t change with the times, by the Constitution originalists own logic, they shouldn’t use any terms other than those actually in the Constitution, the 2nd Amendment says arms, not weapons.

            If one wishes to say the Constitution can only be judged, or used, under the real-world conditions at the time of its adoption, then that person should be logically consistent and live under those same circumstances, it’s hypocritical not to.

            It’s an idiotic mindset anyway, Constitutional originalism, as the framers recognized society would change in ways they couldn’t even begin to imagine, which is why there’s an Amendment process, so the Constitution can change as well.

            • Paul

              From Merriam-Webster: Arms- a means (as a weapon) of offense or defense; especially : Firearm.

    • larry

      You will thank us soon when the shtf. We will of course take pity on you and protect you too, were good like that.

  • http://www.facebook.es/people/Jim-Morrissey/583382528 Jim Morrissey

    So now we arm and prepare our already underpaid teachers to be firearms experts and bodyguards as well? Smart!

    • nicho

      Not only not smart, but absolutely disastrous. A situation such as occurred in Newtown is what even trained commandos have nightmares about. If you’ve got all these people running around with guns, how do you know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are? Also, being able to respond in a situation like that is something that requires intense and constant training. Are our teachers going to spend six months in a training course, several days a week and a weekend a month updating their training? I doubt it.

      In addition, to be effective, you have to be willing to shoot and kill innocent people in your attempt to get the bad guys.

      • colleen2

        I will say that the response of the teachers I’ve read about was impressive. Some of them managed to save their entire classes.

        The notion that grade school teachers or administrators should multi-task as a swat team when necessary is grotesque in it’s inability to deal with reality.

        • HolyMoly

          Yes, adding one more time-consuming and stress-inducing responsibility (gun licensing and extensive training) on top of all the inane tests they have to prepare students for, all the additional time they have to give for grading tests, after school activities, etc….added to that the same crappy pay they receive, would NOT be a successful venture. They’re already spread pretty thin as it is. They need to be superlative at one thing and one thing only — education — not average or semi-sucky at a whole bunch of things.

          The school system where I live has a permanent police officer posted at each school. They have their own office in the school, they maintain a positive relationship with the students and teachers, just like the old cops walking the beat used to, and of course they are armed. As far as rapid response, there you have at least one person who is well trained in the proper use of deadly force should the need arise. Adding armed teachers to the mix would simply fill the school with dozens of half-trained people who, quite frankly, would get in the way. Sometimes when trying to “help” a person can make things worse by mucking things up.

          So that would be my question: What about a “school marshal” or whatever you want to call them? Personally, I don’t want to see my child’s teacher wearing a holster…but I can accept a police officer in the school. Hell, that might help reduce so many of the other problems we face in schools these days, such as bullying.

      • HolyMoly

        On a not-entirely-unrelated note, consider the Gabby Giffords shooting. There were two people who were carrying firearms near the scene of the shooting who, when they heard the gunfire and the panic, drew their weapons in an effort I guess to save the day. Both of them had the best intentions in mind: People are in danger, and we want to help. Suddenly the two guys (they are not together) come into contact with each other. They each see the other holding a gun and immediately think “that’s the bad guy.” It’s definitely the first thought you’re going to have when you see the other guy armed and drawn. They very nearly got into a shooting match.

        They are both very fortunate to have hesitated and, I guess, made the determination that neither was a threat. But the more people you throw into situations like that, the greater the likelihood that something awful will happen. You’d have more and more people who are not going to be able to process the information in a split second and make the right decisions. Just like a machine…the more parts there are, the greater the likelihood that something is going to break down.

        Now apply that to, let’s say, 100 armed teachers in a school, all popping out of doors and around corners unexpectedly in the heat of the adrenaline-infused moment. Not going to be pretty.

    • HolyMoly

      I know…adding more bullets to the crossfire is not going to make things any safer.

      A few thoughts on that inane idea: (1) guns would have to be locked in a teacher’s desk (has to be locked, with 5-year-olds running around getting into things) — the assailant walks in, gun already drawn, already shooting, you can’t get to the gun and load it fast enough (the shooter would probably already know to go after the teacher first anyway)…(2) police are trained to protect THEMSELVES over and above anyone else in a given situation — a teacher decides to be the hero and shoot ‘em up with the shooter, the police arrive and see the teacher with a gun, they don’t stop to ask “are you the good guy or the bad guy?”…they assume ANYONE with a gun in their hands is a threat to THEIR safety, and they react accordingly. Teacher, DEAD. (3) kind of a reiteration of the first thought, but if a shooter comes in guns blazing, already drawn and aiming, total surprise, you think you’re going to play Quick Draw McGraw with him and win? He’s already got the drop on you. Game over. (4) What about the teacher who is losing her house, her husband walked out on her, any other bad thing, you name it….now SHE’s the one armed and in a suicidal frame of mind…in the classroom with children…MINE and YOURS. Not a good scenario. (Sorry, the teacher could be a “he” also…or the shooter could be a “she”…you get the point, though)

      The righties need to get with reality on this issue. Guns in the classroom are not going to make things any better.

      • emjayay

        Five year olds? How about teen age gang bangers who know there is a gun in every teacher’s desk? Anyone think they won’t figure out how to steal them? Although I suppose the remaining teaching nuns who wear habits could easily conceal a handgun.

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