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Newt Gingrich (Credit: AP/Dennis Van Tine)

While most of the United States is debating whether or not to get serious about gun control, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has a different solution. During a “Fox & Friends” appearance on Tuesday, Gingrich said that we shouldn’t be listening to the students whose classmates were murdered. Instead, we should be giving more teachers guns.

“I think the only long-term solution, depending on the size of the school, is a minimum of six to eight teachers and administrators who are trained in the use of firearms and have conceal carry permits and are prepared to defend the kids,” Gingrich told the hosts of “Fox & Friends.” He approvingly paraphrased a Florida sheriff who said that America had experimented with gun free zones and they were known as “schools” before adding, “Every school in the country is supposed to be a gun-free zone. If gun control worked, how come it didn’t work? We have to be realistic. We are not going to confiscate guns on the scale to make us a disarmed country.” His remarks add to the least important wing of policy in the wake of the latest national tragedy.

Despite many American teachers not being armed with proper supplies, conservatives think we should start arming teachers with guns.

Concealed carry won't work. Ted the Social Studies Teacher isn't going to morph into Rambo when someone sneak attacks his school with an AR-15.

— Adam Best (@adamcbest) February 18, 2018

Which teachers get guns?
Where will the guns be stored?
Who decides when guns can be brandished?
What penalties will apply if teachers mishandle a weapon?
Will teachers volunteer for gun duty?
Can teachers refuse it?
Who will audit their adherence to regulations?

— Paul Musgrave (@profmusgrave) February 18, 2018

Will preschool teachers have guns?
Will teachers in “juvie” (high risk) schools have guns?
Will the teacher or the school be liable if their gun is stolen?
Can administrators carry weapons? Can they do so in disciplinary situations?

— Paul Musgrave (@profmusgrave) February 18, 2018

https://twitter.com/SunsetSocialist/status/964261262166130688

I’m a teacher&I would never own or carry a gun. I’d do everything I can to protect my students in any situation but I cant condone violence. I’d be uncomfortable hurting anyone or even touching a gun.If there comes a day teachers are required to have gun training U lost a teacher

— liz t (@lizzyloo412) February 16, 2018

Is every teacher supposed to be armed? You are going to force every single teacher to keep a firearm in the classroom, to train them to shoot back, regardless of how they feel about guns in the first place? What a stupid, stupid plan.

— Hutch (@z0mgItsHutch) February 20, 2018

 

Gingrich’s comments come as opponents of gun control have tried to devise an increasingly eclectic range of arguments to thwart gun control efforts. During an interview that was published during the weekend with Jim DeFede of CBS Miami, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., insisted that bans on semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 used during the Parkland school shooting wouldn’t have been effective.

“Number one, the law would not prevent these mass shootings. Number two, there are millions of them in the street already. They’re here to stay. The genie’s out of the bottle,” Rubio told DeFede.

He added: “That said, do I believe it should be harder to get one? Do I believe it should be impossible for someone to get one if they are under the condition that the shooter was in Parkland? Absolutely. And one of the problems we have there is we don’t have the complete mental health picture in the background check system.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took to the airwaves last week to trot out one of the GOP’s favorite blasts against supporters of gun control — namely, that they’re only bringing up the issue because they want to politicize a tragedy.

“The reaction of Democrats to any tragedy is to try to politicize it. So they immediately start calling that we’ve got to take away the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens,” Cruz told Fox News.

Another conservative commentator, David Brooks, incurred controversy when he insisted in his Tuesday column that the problem with the gun control debate was that Americans were being too mean to the NRA.

“If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it is that guns have become a cultural flash point in a nation that is unequal and divided,” Brooks wrote. “The people who defend gun rights believe that snobbish elites look down on their morals and want to destroy their culture. If we end up telling such people that they and their guns are despicable, they will just despise us back and dig in their heels.”

Despite the spin from the pro-gun movement, Americans’ support for gun control has reached a record high. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 97 percent of Americans want universal background checks, 83 percent support a mandatory waiting period and 67 percent want to ban the sale of assault weapons.

NEW Q POLL: Support for GUN CONTROL at all-time high, 66-31%. Support for UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS: 97-2% (as unanimous as you ever see in a poll). BAN ON SALE OF ASSAULT WEAPONS: 67-29%.

— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) February 20, 2018

Also from Q Poll: 83-14% for a mandatory waiting period for all gun purchases.
"It is too easy to buy a gun in the U.S. today": 67-3% agree.
"If more people carried guns, the U.S. would be less safe": 59-33% agree.
"Congress needs to do more to reduce gun violence" 75-17% agree.

— Larry Sabato (@LarrySabato) February 20, 2018

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