Sean Hannity's very bad plan for keeping America safe

The answer to mass shootings is not a police state

A police hat.
(Image credit: Illustrated | fongfong2/iStock, Michael Burrell/iStock, sensationaldesign/iStock)

Reasonable, honest, well-intentioned people can disagree about what to do in response to mass shootings in America. There are data and stories to support a whole range of solutions, some legal and some cultural, some aimed at prevention and others at reducing harm, some drawn from the experience of other countries and others distinctly American, attuned to our unique attention to individual liberty and due process.

One solution not included in that range is the one proposed by Fox News host Sean Hannity on his Monday show: Militarize every public space in America until we have the total security of a bristling police state.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.