'Guns Would Have Prevented Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting,' Argues Rand Paul

For everyone who believes there was no way to stop the actions of Adam Lanza in December that left 26 people dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has some wisdom to drop on you: the mass shooting could have easily been prevented if the teachers had been armed.

While speaking to a group of students at the University of Kentucky last week, Paul espoused the revolutionary notion that the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history by a lone gunman could have been stopped if the teachers had been allowed to carry guns.

"The only thing that probably could have prevented that shooting would have been if the principal had a gun in his desk or if the teacher had a gun at his desk," Paul said, according to WDKY.

Later, Paul rehashed the argument once again on Sean Hannity's Fox News show while speaking with guest host Eric Bolling. 

"In fact, the only thing that would have changed the outcome, potentially changed the outcome, is something that so many people don't want to hear, and that's self-defense," Paul said. "That if someone there had had a concealed carry, if someone had been armed, they might have had a fighting chance. They might not have saved everybody, but they might have been able to save some of those."

According to newly released warrants that include reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the morning of Dec. 14, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his mother Nancy in the head as she lay in bed, packed four legally purchased firearms and drove a black Honda Civic to the Connecticut K-4 elementary school. Lanza opened fire in two classrooms around 9:30 a.m., fatally shooting 20 children and six adults with a Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle, showering the rooms with 154-bullets in less than five minutes before taking his own life with a Glock 10 mm handgun. Police revealed the Bushmaster had a 30-round capacity magazine; 14 rounds were left in the magazine, with one bullet still in the chamber. 

Authorities said Lanza was found dressed up in military clothing, including a bulletproof vest. He still had another three, 30-round magazines left for the Bushmaster, as well as another loaded handgun on him. Police also found a fully loaded 12-gauge shotgun in the car's glove compartment, along with 70 rounds of Winchester 12-gauge shotgun rounds. 

Statistics are split across the board concerning guns and self-defense. No one study has provided definitive proof for either side of the gun control argument. A recent study conducted by The Harvard Injury Control Research Center, who analyzed gun and homicide data and literature, said that available evidence indicated that more guns equals more murders, a finding it said was supported across states, and countries.

Since 1982, there have been "at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country" in 30 states, according to Mother Jones; of those, 15 occurred in 2012 alone, according to The Huffington Post.