Mike Pence would rather see armed school guards than gun control reforms
Former vice president says ‘heart breaks’ for Chicago and other cities hit by gun violence
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Mike Pence says he wants to see an armed guard in every public school in America to try and prevent mass shootings rather than gun control measures.
The former vice president told a CNN town hall that he believed there should be more gun-carrying security guards in American schools capable of taking down shooters.
“We ought to fund an armed and trained security guard at every public school in America and we ought to do it now,” he told host Dana Bash.
Bash pointed out that heavily-armed police had not prevented the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 students and two teachers were murdered.
“That is why I always say trained and armed .... they have got to be trained. If it takes federal funding let’s do it,” said Mr Pence.
“I just think we ought to end the conversation and Washington DC should stand up and provide the funding for a trained armed guard that can be part of the school community.”
Mr Pence was also asked to justify his belief in expediting the death penalty for mass shooters, most of whom are killed or intend to die during the violence.
“I follow these stories as closely as you do and of course our years in the White House we saw one tragedy after another and we see evidence in the aftermath that they went in without regard to whether they would survive, but I just believe in the deterrent of the law,” he said.
“I believe that if perhaps we made it clear ... the Parkland shooter in Florida is going to spend the rest of his life in jail, that is not justice.”
Mr Pence told the town hall that his “heart breaks” for Chicago, where his parents grew up, and the gun violence that has impacted the city.
“We need to get serious and tough on violent crime and give our cities and states resources to restore law and order to our streets,” he said.
Bash then had a surprising statistic for the former governor of Indiana.
“I just want to say, because I’ve heard other people talk about Chicago, just for the record, the ATF data shows that more than half of the recovered guns used to commit crimes in Illinois in 2021, do you know where they came from? Indiana,” she told him.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments