It was January 3, 2013, and I was asked by MSNBC to be a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews. My position: more guns equals fewer crimes. And even more to the point, I said on national television that we should arm our school teachers and administrators to give them a fighting chance in the event of a school attack like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary.
What followed that TV interview was shocking: I was lambasted with hate mail and death threats.
But now, Actor Vince Vaughn tells GQ Magazine that Americans should have guns in public, and furthermore, guns should be allowed in schools.
Vaughn says, "In all of our schools it is illegal to have guns on campus, so again and again these guys go and shoot up these schools because they know there are no guns there. They are monsters killing six-year-olds."
Also weighing in on the debate is Judge Andrew Napolitano, who told Stuart Varney on Fox Business News that Vince Vaughn hit on a good point with his remarks on guns in schools.
"The slaughter occurs before the police can get there. If there was return fire, the slaughter would be minimized and perhaps avoided," Napolitano said.
How many more times are we going to hear about a crazed gunman walking into a school armed and ready to kill? How many more innocent children need to die before we wake up and prepare our teachers to fight back? The only solution is self-responsibility: arm school officials and give them a fighting chance. No gunman is going to target a school that can defend itself and fight back.
Judge Napolitano also told Stuart Varney that innocent kids are like "fish in a barrel to a monster."
Unfortunately, Napolitano is right. If you take the emotion out of it and look at the situation through logic, the only practical solution is to arm the teachers. Let's be real for a minute: In a perfect world we wouldn't need to take these kinds of measures. But we're talking about the safety and well-being of our precious children. Shouldn't we at least give them a fighting chance? If a crazed gunman walked into your child's school, wouldn't you feel a little better knowing your child's teacher and school administrator had a chance to protect your child?
You may recall in the tragedy at Sandy Hook, first-grade teacher and hero Victoria Soto was shot and killed after hiding her kids in a closet and telling the gunman the kids were in gym. She might still be alive today had she been armed and able to defend herself.
A lot of people say guns are scary and have no place on a school campus with young children. The problem with that argument is it detracts from the real issue at hand and it's clouded with emotion: Like it or not, the bad guys are always going to have guns. There's nothing we can do to stop that. So if that's the case, then we have two choices: sit around and let them overpower us or fight back. I don't know about you, but I'd rather fight back. And if a crazed gunman goes to my child's school, I want my child's teacher and school staff to fight back, too.
Right now, the only solution is to exercise our second amendment rights, arm our teachers and school officials and keep a close eye on anti-gun crusaders who want to make our decisions for us. A school should be a safe haven where children can learn and grow. Arming teachers is the only practical solution to keep our children safe.