Fox News host Sean Hannity is calling for a virtual police state of armed ex-cops and military to “surround” schools and shopping malls to prevent mass shootings.
“Every school,” Hannity said. “Secure the perimeter of those schools. Equip them with retired police and military, they should be on every floor of every school.”
Retired police and military could volunteer for 15 hours a week in exchange for paying no federal or state income taxes, he suggested.
“We can do that with stores. We can do that in malls. We can do that pretty much anywhere the public is,” Hannity said. “Courthouses, we can expand that out everywhere and keep Americans safe.”
Hannity, who has campaigned for President Donald Trump and reportedly advises him in private, has made the proposal in the past as well.
There are close to 100,000 public and 35,000 private K-12 schools in the United States so a force large enough to “surround the perimeter” and be on each floor would require several hundred thousand people, if not more. Statista reported that there were 116,000 shopping malls in the U.S. as of 2017, adding several hundred thousand more to the Hannity Force.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, there are currently 701,000 full-time sworn law enforcement officers in the country; the Hannity Force would essentially come close to matching or even exceeding those numbers, especially if his plan was expanded “everywhere” to include other non-mall stores and shopping centers, courthouses, etc.
Hannity’s paramilitary proposal was roundly panned on social media: