In the aftermath of last Wednesday’s shooting at Fort Hood, Glenn delivered an impassioned monologue in which he advocated for the rearming of our military bases.
“The other thing our troops need… is a gun. I know we can disagree on whether or not guys like me should have a gun, but… they have a right to defend themselves,” Glenn said. “I don’t understand a country that disarms the military… You can trust them in a snap decision walking in the streets in some other country… but you can’t trust them to carry a gun in our own country? It’s insane.”
On last Thursday’s Glenn Beck Program, retired Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who survived the 2009 attack at Ft. Hood, and Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin further promoted the idea that our servicemen and women on military bases should once again for allowed to exercise their right to bear arms.
“When I first heard the news… I was angry. I was hurt. And I felt defenseless because I felt that I was in a position, again, where I could not protect those that needed to be protected,” Lunsford said. “How many times are we going to exercise the fact that we are expendable and just let these things happen and in the aftermath say, ‘Well, I’m sorry for your loss?’ That doesn’t cut it because people died. Give us a right to defend ourselves because that’s what we’re trained to do.”
Other active and retired members of the military have expressed similar sentiment. Earlier this week, TheBlaze published a story about a powerful letter written by a soldier who was at Ft. Hood last week asking for his “God-given right” to defend himself. Christopher Coleman, a member of the Texas Army National Guard, read the letter, which was written by First Lieutenant Patrick Cook, during a Texas State Senate hearing Monday.
“My name is First Lieutenant Patrick Cook of the 49th Transportation Battalion, Fort Hood, Texas, and this past Wednesday I found myself trapped in an enclosed room with fourteen of my fellow Soldiers, one of whom was barricading the door against a madman with a .45 pistol when he was fatally shot,” the letter begins.
“Through what I can only describe as a miracle, he somehow found enough strength to continue pushing against that door until the shooter gave up and went elsewhere, at which time he collapsed,” Cook continues. “Nearly a week later, I can still taste his blood in my mouth from when I and my comrades breathed into his lungs for 20 long minutes while we waited for a response from the authorities. This Soldier’s name was Sergeant First Class Daniel Ferguson, and his sacrifice loaned me the rest of my life to tell this story.”
Read the entire letter HERE.
On radio this morning, Glenn explained why Cook’s letter “should be the most viral thing in the country” and why he is “sick and tired” of seeing the American flag being flown at half-mast. These mass-casualty events will continue to happen again and again, if something is not done.
“No one would go to Fort Hood to shoot it up if everyone had their firearms. No one would do it,” Glenn said. “And if somebody… went and just pulled their gun out and they were going to shoot somebody, they would make one shot.”
When is the last time you heard about a mass shooting at a police department? Much like our military, police officers face life or death, high stress situations in which they must determine whether or not to draw their weapons, and yet unlike military bases, police stations are not gun-free zones.
“Here's a good example: When is the last time we had a mass shooting where 30 people were killed at a police department,” Stu asked. “It doesn't happen. Who the hell would go in there? They'd get shot in 10 seconds. No one would do it.”
Unfortunately, as these tragic events become more and more common, people become more desensitized to the violence. For example, Glenn, Pat, and Stu struggled to recall the details of yesterday’s mass stabbing at Franklin Regional High School in Pennsylvania where 22 people were injured.
“How many people died in the stabbings yesterday,” Glenn asked. “Pat, you remember Columbine. You were on the air. The next day, after 22 people would have been injured, seven of them critically, do you think we would have had to look that up? Everybody would have known that… [But] it’s so frequent. I don't know. I can't keep up with them. All we say is, ‘Oh, dear God, another one?’”
“I don't know about you. I'm sick and tired of seeing the flag at half-mast. I see it at half-staff all the time,” he continued. “Am I the only one that's sick of that? Am I the only one that's like, ‘Why?’ It's absolutely not reasonable.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP
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