A Republican congressman claimed Thursday that lives would have been saved if teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., were armed.
“If the principal in Sandy Hook had been running, as she so heroically did, [if] she got a gun in her hands … there would have been people saved,” said Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, on the House floor in a speech about proposed gun restrictions in light of the recent Orlando shootings.
Sandy Hook Elementary principal Dawn Hochsprung lunged toward the gunman during the 2012 massacre in an attempt to stop him, but was fatally shot.
Gohmert defended the “so-called assault weapon” as a tool that can be a “good thing to have” for a military member, law enforcement or someone seeking to defend themselves from home invaders.
The lawmaker warned that “once you ban an assault weapon, you can ban every gun that exists.”
