WINDSOR — Rocker Ted Nugent says there are teachers all over the country who are perfectly capable of carrying a weapon to protect students.
Nugent, who was recently in Windsor stumping for Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams, told Complete Colorado that there are teachers already capable of stopping someone with an intent to kill, and many more who are willing to learn.
“There are teachers all over this country that have a concealed weapon permit and they are as good as any of us at tactics,” Nugent said. “They enjoy it. It’s fun. It’s disciplined. It’s fun to shoot. It’s hand-eye coordination. They are capable of stopping evil.”
Nugent spoke with Complete Colorado after a 30-minute speech — highlighted by a few riffs of his most popular music and a guitar rendition of the National Anthem — at Windsor’s Water Valley in support of Reams and other Colorado Sheriffs who are pushing back against Colorado’s Red Flag Law.
“To think that in 2019, it’s actually a controversy that men and women who swore an oath to the U.S. Constitution, that we somehow have to have a rally, when they actually stand up and refuse to violate that oath. That’s how crazy it’s gotten. So, God Bless the law enforcement heroes who continue to defy the status quo, and thank you for supporting the sheriffs who live up to their oath,” Nugent told a crowd of more than 300 who the rocker called ‘Uncle Ted’s shit-kicker army,’ and who paid $150 per ticket to see the Motor City Mad Man. “But you should also not support and get after those who won’t fulfill their oath.”
Reams has pledged to go to jail rather than enforce the Red Flag Law if he is ever asked to, while Douglas County Sheriff, fellow Republican and champion of the Red Flag law, Tony Spurlock is facing recall.
Nugent said educating kids and others about guns, including arming teachers and other school staff has always been a no-brainer for him, dating back to the Columbine shooting 20 years ago.
“It was the week after Columbine, where everyone’s heart was shattered,” he said. “We cried as a family. Who didn’t?”
Nugent, who has operated Ted Nugent’s Kamp for Kids for 30 years, said just days after the Columbine tragedy he gave a demonstration to his then fourth-grade son’s school about guns and gun safety.
“In the shadow of anti-gun maniacal over-reaction I did a firearms presentation at my son’s school,’” he said. “Staring out with .22 CB caps all the way to 50-caliber machine gun ammo. I had guns and ammo in the school with the entire assemblage there. I think that’s a better idea than being afraid of it.”
He said the most “glaring outrage” around arming teachers is the claim that advocates expect all teachers to carry.
“I love when the media (I don’t love it I hate it) says: ‘Well you can’t just expect a teacher to pick up a gun and know what to do with it.’” he said. “Did anybody say that? In every instance, I am as sure as I’m standing here, in every mass shooting, there was someone who would have had a gun on them had they been allowed to. But our abandonment of self-evident truth individual rights forced that to be a gun free zone and the result was inevitable.”
Nugent said there is no reason those who already hold concealed permits and want to participate shouldn’t be allowed to.
“It’s all so perfect,” he said. They are already there. We’re not talking about somebody who is afraid of guns carrying a gun. If you don’t want to, don’t. But those of us that are inclined to follow our responsibility to stop evil — there’s already an army of them out there. Those are the ones that would start.”
In other instances, Nugent said, there is another group, that may not already be trained but would like to be.
“Some of those that have never touched a gun in their life have an instinct,” he said. “In these circumstances, their instinct came forward to be a mother hen or a safeguard. Those are the ones we are addressing. They are already ready to rock. I train people in firearms all the time. It’s fun. It’s easy.”
Nugent hosted three Kamp for Kids this year, the last one is in Loveland on July 19. According to his Website, the idea is to train a new generation of hunters with hands-on instruction in firearms and archery.
Nugent also performs a campfire rendition of his popular hunt songs and talks to Kampers about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, his Website says. Nugent has been clean and sober his entire 71 years of life.
“It is impossible to have fun by poisoning your sacred temple with dope and booze,” he said. “I get high by sitting 20 feet up in a tree with my bow and arrows.”
