On Sunday's AM Joy, the show's panel of former Republicans joined far-left host Joy Reid in freaking out over the idea of encouraging some school teachers to carry concealed weapons to combat attacks on schools with faux Republican Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin calling it President Donald Trump's "dumbest idea," Michelle Bernard fretting that teachers will shoot black students, and former Republican Kurt Bardella excoriating NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch as a "paid mercenary" who "has no soul," and is displaying "idiocy."
They seemed oblivious to the fact that a significant number of schools already have teachers who are trained to use guns and bring them to school in a number of states, including Texas.
In a segment that aired at 10:27 a.m. Eastern, Rubin declared that "This is the dumbest idea of many dumb ideas Trump has had," and predicted that police officers would shoot teachers if an attack happened -- as if the teachers would not have the sense to put their guns away when they see and hear the police arriving.
Additionally, host Joy Reid oddly predicted that "if you put metal detectors up, former students would know they can just walk through the metal detectors with no gun and acquire their weapons in school inside the building," inspiring nods of agreement and looks of amusement from her panel members.
The MSNBC host has notably been melting down via Twitter over the issue, at one point seeming to refer to armed teachers as "warlords," and vowing that she would keep her children away from any schools that allow guns.
After Reid brought up the topic of Loesch's speech at the CPAC convention in which the NRA spokeswoman accused the media of being glad that mass shootings happen, frequent guest Kurt Bardella -- a former Republican who switched to the Democratic Party -- charged that "this is a different dimension of idiocy we're seeing right now on display from people like Dana," and added that "this is someone who clearly frankly has no soul who's a -- just a paid mercenary who's happy to keep cashing the check from the NRA."
In another segment at 11:08 a.m. Eastern, Bernard worried about the possibility of armed teachers by recalling someone who wrote a message fretting that "no one's going to want to come to our country if our teachers have guns in the schools, and what is going to happen to black boys in classrooms if teachers have guns and a teacher gets a bad vibe from a black boy and shoots him?"
Rubin also praised the media for "being more aggressive" with the NRA and for engaging in "hand to hand combat" as she alleged that the "mainstream media" have a history of showing a "forced moral equivalence" when dealing with the NRA.
The day before in an appearance on Deadline: White House, Rubin had called the proposal to arm teachers a "preposterous idea" and "the most idiotic idea" Trump has had.
Host Nicolle Wallace then repeated the myth of nearly all Americans wanting "universal background checks" to be enacted as the MSNBC host declared that "97 percent of the public -- which includes pretty much everybody in the NRA except for maybe two percent -- supports universal background checks. And the idea that nothing has happened is preposterous."
