On "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning, Brian Kilmeade addressed the controversy he helped create yesterday when he prompted GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson to say of active-shooter situations like the one in Roseburg, Oregon that "I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.'"
Carson has been widely criticized for encouraging untrained Americans to run blithely at armed gunmen, but Kilmeade and guest Jon Adler, the president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, are determined to defend the neurosurgeon against charges that his advice is reckless and irresponsible.
"Charge" is a manly "action verb, not quite the terms one would be given in a bear attack, where playing 'possum' you might increase your chances of survival," Adler said.
"Unfortunately, an active shooter isn't there to rob a bank, he's there to rob your life," he continued. "When you're in the eye of that storm, you have one choice and one choice only, which is to reach deep in your spirit and channel it [and] charge the target and hope others do the same, to help minimize or defeat the target."
Brian Kilmeade brought up the example of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed without hitting its intended target on 9/11 because of the actions of the hijacked passengers. "This is a similar situation," he said -- despite the fact that it clearly isn't. The 9/11 hijackers weren't carrying loaded firearms, and an airplane is an enclosed space entirely under the control of a pilot, not an environment in which running and sheltering is a viable option.
However, pointing out facts like those is inadequately heroic, as the appropriate response, according to Adler, is to "draw upon the American indomitable will, and you seize upon that, and you employ everything in your means to charge that threat. You charge, you let out a loud verbal stun."
He argued that charging makes you less likely to be shot, because "it's harder to hit a moving target" and "you prevent them from engaging in re-loads." Besides, "there are worse things in life than dying with honor."
Kilmeade also criticized Salon for a headline Wednesday saying "Ben Carson is just this vile," though he didn't note that article beneath it didn't directly address the comments about which he and Adler were speaking.
Watch the entire interview below via Fox News.
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