Ever-colorful conservative personality Glenn Beck has made no secret of his support of the Second Amendment and his disdain for gun control. But in a new show that debuted this week on The Blaze TV, Beck and a guest suggested a troubling solution for stopping gun violence in the classroom.
The show, called “Foundations of Freedom,” featured a segment with David Barton, a self-styled but largely discredited historian, whose book The Jefferson Lies was pulled from stores following widespread scholarly criticism.
According to Beck's website, Beck and Barton were looking at how past leaders have dealt with crises similar to the Sandy Hook shooting and were aiming to "discuss the importance of the second amendment and the history of guns and gun laws in America."
Barton proceeded to tell Beck a fascinating but vague anecdote about a school shooting from the 1850s that was apparently stymied by a classroom full of gun-toting elementary tots.
“A guy, he’s out in the West, this guy from New England wants to kill him and find him," Barton said. "So, he comes into the school with his gun to shoot the teacher, he decides not to shoot the teacher because all the kids pull their guns out and point it at him and say, ‘You kill the teacher, you die.’ He says, ‘Okay.’ The teacher lives. Real simple stuff.”
And did these armed elementary kids shoot each other? Beck asked. No, Barton said, adding that he had seen only two accidents recorded in the approximately 200-year period he had studied.
Barton did not offer any documentation to back up these statements, but Beck seemed to take them at face value.
This week, a Queens, N.Y., school was placed under lockdown when a loaded .22-caliber gun was discovered in the backpack of a seven-year-old, CBS reported. Israel Tavarez, a father at the school, told CBS that Wave Preparatory Academy, where the incident took place, needed to add some kind of security to prevent this from happening.
"It's ridiculous," Tavarez said.
The National Rifle Association has suggested placing armed guards at schools instead.
Take a look at the video (above) to see the segment featuring Beck and Barton's discussion.
(h/t Right Wing Watch via Raw Story)
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