(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is widely regarded as a potential candidate in the 2024 presidential race, has produced a four-step plan to combat school shootings while protecting Second Amendment rights, according to Breitbart News.
Pence’s plan includes:
- ending the defund the police movements
- installing armed resource officers in every American school
- shortening the period that mass shooters live in prison
- reestablishing institutional mental-health care for those who need it
Pence said the first part of his plan is absolutely non-negotiable.
“I’m going to talk today about saying we got to end the ‘Defund the Police’ movement once and for all,” he said during an interview with Breitbart at the National Rifle Association’s annual gathering, which was overshadowed by two mass-shooting attacks perpetrated by far-left radicals.
Pence tied his first point, funding the police, with the installation of armed officers in schools.
“As Biden finds trillions of dollars to spend on every liberal wish-list item in Washington, D.C., I think the time has come to give every community in the country the resources necessary to put armed resource officers in every public and private school in the country,” he said.
Pence explained the need for swift justice for school shooters.
“I believe we need to have a new federal statute that not only has a death penalty for mass shootings but also expedites the appeal process,” he said. “We don’t want to deny anybody due process but the idea that we have people languishing in prison for years who claimed the lives of innocent civilians in these mass shootings is just unconscionable to me.”
Lastly, Pence said that the government must provide institutional care for the mentally ill rather than allowing them to remain at large where they pose a menace—or threat—to the general public.
“The truth is we walked away from institutional mental health back in the 1970s,” he said.
The lack of institutional care available to Americans can create a crisis in the home and lead to school shootings, Pence said.
“Right now a family facing someone struggling with serious mental illness—who’s maybe a danger to themselves or others—oftentimes only has the county lockup to turn to.”
Pence wanted to contrast his plan with the actions of the Biden administration.
“I think … the Biden Administration … has set its sights on the Second Amendment enshrined in the Constitution,” he said. “Now more than ever people that cherish the right to keep and bear arms need their voices to be heard. We need to elect leaders who will stand by our Constitution and stand by our God-given rights.”
Pence explained why he thought the American people needed a solution like his.
“The American people know that firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens make our communities more safe not less safe,” he said. “In one situation after another, the American people have seen that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun. I do think we owe it to the country to offer real solutions and begin to say there’s something wicked afoot in the culture in these shootings.”
