Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. wants to make his university virtually terrorist proof.
In a recent speech, Falwell urged all students, staff and faculty at his Christian school to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon on campus to counter any copycat attack like the deadly rampage in California just days ago.
“Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here,” Falwell told a crowd of thousands at a convocation Friday on the school campus in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Falwell’s call to arms was applauded by the group. Approximately 14,000 students attend Liberty University’s campus, as well as a reported 1,800 staff.
“I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in,” Falwell said.
Falwell clarified his remarks on Saturday, saying he was specifically referring to Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, the husband and wife who shot and killed 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino on Wednesday.
Falwell also said he believed the campus needed to be prepared in the face of the increasing frequency of mass killings. He cited, for example, the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and less than 100 miles southwest of Liberty.
“What if just one of those students or one of those faculty members had a concealed permit and was carrying a weapon when the shooter walked into Virginia Tech? Countless lives could have been saved,” he said.
Falwell’s message is apparently being heeded. He said more than 100 people had asked Liberty police about a free class to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
Liberty was founded by Jerry Falwell Sr., who was among the nation’s first conservative cultural warriors. The Moral Majority founder’s barbed commentary on contemporary matters such as gay Americans made him a reviled figure to some and a pioneering conservative crusader to others.
Following the San Bernardino shootings, which left 14 dead, Falwell said he began carrying a .25-caliber handgun in his back pocket. He said he’s had a permit for more than year.
During his address Friday, Falwell mentioned the weapon and reached around seemingly to fetch it.
“Is it illegal to pull it out? I don’t know,” he said, laughing, drawing some hoots from the audience.
Asked if he was concerned by the prospect of thousands of armed young people on campus, Falwell said Virginia has a minimum age of 21 for a carry-conceal permit. He said that meant only older students would be armed.
Falwell said he had also reached out to a first responder in San Bernardino to see if the school could offer scholarship assistance to his children.
The Associated Press contributed to this article
Falwell is one sick puppy.
Is it more sick to prepare to defend yourself, and suggest that others do the same, or to pretend that the police are always nearby and can protect you when terrorists decide to kill innocent people for no discernible reason? Is it more sick to do what’s necessary to protect yourself and others, or to sit by passively and allow obviously sick people who want to murder people to get attention for themselves to shoot you and your family or friends? You can call this man a ‘sick puppy’, but you seem to be delusional. We live in a new world created by liberal policies and actions that have enabled the Middle East to terrorize the world, and IMHO, this man is just responding to that new reality. He’s not saying he’s going out on the streets hunting for muslims to shoot, just that if he finds himself under attack, he plans to be as ready as possible to defend himself. How in the world do you call that sick?
I want to be in the same room as Mr. Falwell Jr,
I agree. It would most definitely be good to have armed faculty and students. Better to be save than sorry.
He is awesome and wise to do this…Muslims are taking over other campuses because of the money Saudi Arabia donates to them.
Salinas ,you are even sicker ,when they come after you ,then you scream the loudest ,save me ,save me ,I hope you keep screaming and no one hears you ,you crazy B….
I feel YOU are a sick puppy! You apparently are willing to let innocent people be gunned down – people with no way to defend themselves!
He may be, but I hope his efforts gives the innocent the ability to stop the sick so-and-so that want to kill all infidels!!! You do realize that the really sick have been killing Jews, Christians and Infidels for 1400 hundred years?
I have no reason to believe that they are going to stop now. After all they kill each other if the don’t adhere to the Quran the same way they do. You do know that don’t you???
you are the sick puppy….I am ready to sign up to help them
Falwell, is my kind of a sick puppy! Better to conceal carry, and not need it, than to need it and not have it!
Amil Falwell is not sick, had any of those 31 people in San Bernardo would have had a gun , then there possibly would be less 1 terrorist at the scene and a bunch of dead or wounded people that would not have been. Texas had a Concealed Carrier Permit now and will have an Open Carry on Junauary 1, 2016 and a Campus Carry in August 2016, Texas is already safe but will be almost Terrorist proof unles we have people like Alicia Salinas calling the shots. She just wants people to stand there and be shot down like killing sheep.
Falwell is correct to protect his campus and its students from the Terrorists…
If more law abiding adult students and other individuals took the gun carry courses and laws, the Criminals and Terrorists would avoid them….
Good for his way of thinking, more of it is needed throughout the United States of America to help stop and prevent their murderous attacks !!
Amen!!!
How about helping the student under 21 take part in helping fellow students? The school could place fire extinguishers in two differant areas of each class room. This way they can pull the pin and point them at the terrorists to blind them or at less buy some time for students and staff to escape the room.
Good for putting out fires too!
Kathy there are other deterents as well as a fire extinguiser, but they will not compare to using a firearm to defend yourself. Plain old wasp spray is in a pressurized can will do a lot but is would be only good after you got within about 15 feet. A good knife or club but again you would have to get close unless yo u learn to throw the knife and it is still limited to distance throwed. I have a concealed carry permit and own a Gun shop and we also teach the concealed carry course, beginning firearms course and will be teaching the Youth Hunter program where we teach young hunters the necessary things to successfully hunt SAFELY.
Falwell is correct. He did nothing illegal. We all have the right to bear arms.
The areas of the country with the highest cases of gun assault are the areas with the strictest gun laws, that is a fact. The areas attacked & where these school shootings, mass murders ,etc. occur are gun free zones. I agree to the point that those who feel comfortable carrying are allowed to do so if they pass a training course, & obtain a permit. In the case of an attack they will be allowed to defend themselves, anti- gun liberals can be put into groups & murdered in order to prove to the world their devotion to gun control. I want my grandkids to only go to a school allowing concealed carry with permit!
God bless Jerry Falwell, Jr. I hope more schools answer this call for Christian Americans to defend themselves. If terrorists, either Muslimes, black, or anyone sick enough to kill randomly, know anyone could possibly be carrying a concealed weapon they won’t be so eager to kill us. NO ONE is safe any more, least of all white Christians. Only 409 days left till we don’t have to hear this lying piece of s**t spewing his hatred while reading his TelePrompTer. Yeah, that’s some great orator. He can’t make a full sentence without a bunch of ums, uhs, etc., unless someone else writes it for him. Trump/Cruz 2016!! We need them!
Oh, so the Jews, Buddhists, Shamanists, Wiccans, Shintoists, Confucisist, Taoists, Muslims who don’t expect their women to be escorted around in tents and recognize “rape,” Hindi, etc., should just go on being blindly ignorant?
This time of year reminds me of the story of a visiting Russian rabbi. The host family took him to a Chinese restaurant, where they were given little metal trees as Christmas gifts. They were joking about the “made in India” tags on them when they noticed the rabbi quietly crying. Fearing they had offended him, they asked if they had upset him. “Nyet!” he cried. “I am so happy to be in a country where a Confucist gives a Jew a Christian gift made by a Hindi!”
I agree. Trump/Cruz, all the way!
Right on brother!! This university will need to expand quickly – countless other parents will want their kids going here now in the new transformed American, world order Obama promised and delivered. It’d be comforting knowing they will be safer than in the PC no gun zones the delusional Leftists have created in universities across the land.
The big picture problem – not being honest and confronting the problem. Hilary, Barack Hussein, & the press keep saying don’t worry – only a very small % of Muslims in the US and the world support Isis or sharia law and feel violence against Americans is justified. (That means only a small fraction of Muslims are true followers of the quran since it calls for jihad, injury and murder over 100 times.) Do the math – that is 100’s of thousands already in the US and 40-75 Million around the world, and yet our Govt is letting more in every week. Islam is the problem – it’s both evil and violates the Constitution. What are the traitors who work for this Pres & Administration thinking? They hate America. Thank you Liberty for leading the way and being an example to the rest of us and protecting your students and staff.
Amen Franklin!!! The media needs to stop saying the President just does not understand what is going on in the Mideast and does not understand Islamic Terrorist. The President does understand exactly what He is doing and not doing. It is well known that the President heritage is Shia Muslim and He went to Islamic school until He came to the US for further education. Can you honestly say his background has no influence on his perception of world order? Do you understand that Muslims are not required by their doctrine to be honest with the Infidel? How many times in the past seven years has the President spoke about the evils America has committed against the rest of the world and it’s time for payback? He really sees America as the world’s problem. Does His past actions substantiate His rhetorical remarks? Understand the President is not saying to us what He believes, but what He wants US to believe!!! What about the President taking the oath of office with his hand on the Quran? Was he taking an oath to the US constitution or to Allah???
Dear Franklin, thanks for your imput….hope you don’t mind, for the number of Muslims is a much larger number than what you named, it’s 1.6 BILLION, so it’s even a bigger problem…issue to be dealt with. It will be mandatory!
Hey Alicia… we’ll be looking for you and your kind….. After we get accepted to Jerry’s college.
Too bad i can’t afford to go on for a masters. Small businesses dropping like flies, survivors not hiring–or else holding out for the purple squirrels, and that’s pretty much all we’ve got in the area.
I question the wisdom of having lecture rooms filled with handguns. It’s only a matter of time until an innocent bystander gets killed when someone accidentally discharges their gun.
We need to remember that while these shooting sprees make the news, that most people never be in a place where someone is murdering people.
Common wisdom does not encourage people to go about wielding guns. There is a much greater risk of innocent bystanders getting harmed when people intentionally shoot at them than if a gun is accidentally discharged. If you fear an accident more than menacing intentions, there will be no way to protect yourself.
The main cause of AD with someone who’s been through a even the most basic CC course is on-body carry folks catching the gun on something in the bathroom because they’ve got no place to transfer it when they drop their pants. Second place is tots getting into the off-body holster, and how many students take their toddlers to class?
I bet if you crunched the numbers, you’d find the chances of AD in a CC holder about the same as the average driver hitting a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Do you worry about all the cars driving past you while you’re walking down the sidewalk?
I can tell you they’ve crunched the numbers on CC-holders vs. cops, and CC-holders are LESS likely than cops to AD. What does that tell you?
This is exactly why the gun-grabbers get in such a tizzy. They imagine a scenario, and try to start legislating to avoid the scenario, without ever stopping to evaluate how likely the scenario actually is. Meanwhile other, more likely, scenarios (like getting mugged on the way home from class) are ignored.
I question your wisdom Justin
Few people will ever be in an area where accidental discharges are killing people either. Particularly since a gun safety course is required to get a concealed carry permit. These folks are well trained.
I am a peaceful, tolerant person who would never want to cause harm to anyone; however, in light of the infiltration of menacing people into my homeland, I am preparing to take instructional courses and acquire a permit to carry. Hopefully, I will never find myself in a situation where I would need a gun for protection, but since our government is not protecting us, Americans will need to avail themselves of their legal rights to protect themselves against assailants that intend to cause harm in America and everywhere in the world. It is not politically correct to identify them but we all know who they are.
Alicia..The next time you go see your Dr. Ask him about a new epidemic at the White House and Democratic Presidential candidates that is called Cranial Anial Insertion.. More commonly know as Head Up Your A___S disease.. Thank you Mr Falwell for being a man and standing up in the face of The Washington PC dumb a–sees.. Oh by the way Alicia,, that sick puppy,, just offered free , Yes free , schlorships to all the victims children .. Makes me wonder who the sick puppy is.. You think!!
“Cranial Anal Insertion.”
Isn’t that part of the initiation ceremony for politicians entering into the Democratic Party?
That’s why they called the Colt .45 the “Peacemaker” in the “Wild West”. The conditions in the “American Wild West” were such that ordinary citizens considered it their duty to be armed against marauding bands of thugs. Law enforcement was stretched very thinly over the huge expanse of the West and definitely could not be depended upon for adequate protection. That is when citizens decided to take it into their own hands. They cleaned up the West.
There is no reason to believe that sane, law-abiding citizens owning guns (provided proper safety precautions are maintained) has anything but a deterrent effect on crime. It worked in the past and will work again. There are nations with a very high rate of per capita gun ownership (much higher than the U.S.) who have very little gun crime. Taking guns away from the people is a disaster waiting to happen. The only nations who ever removed guns from the people were Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and China under Chairman Mao. I hardly think we want to join that group. Europe has had far more terrorist incidents 1) because they permitted themselves to be invaded by Muslim radicals and 2) because they have extremely strict gun control. The European media only report a fraction of the incidents–the most serious ones. Interestingly, Switzerland has had no such invasion and they also require every Swiss home to be armed. They have had no terrorist incidents. What does that tell you?
You forgot Australia’s mandatory gun buy-back.
Yes–you’re right–I forgot that the Aussies have been deprived of gun ownership, in addition to most Europeans. The Liberals tried to do that in Canada, starting with the gun registry (so they would know who had them–the first step toward confiscation) but the Conservatives scrapped it. Now that the Liberals are back in power and forcing Muslim refugees down the throats of Canadians, look for more gun violence and then registration/confiscation, Canada.
Jesus left us an important message when he chased the money changers out with a whip.
How can you tell the good muslims from the bad muslims? Do you want to take a chance?