Liberty U. President Urges Students to Carry Concealed Weapons on Campus

Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, drew loud applause on Friday at a campus convocation where he told students that carrying concealed weapons is the way to stop rampages like the one on Wednesday that left 14 dead in San Bernardino, Calif.

“Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here,” he said in remarks reported by The News & Advance of Lynchburg, Va.

He attracted some criticism as well, for a statement about Muslims that he subsequently clarified:

“It just blows my mind when I see that the president of the United States [says] that the answer to circumstances like that is more gun control,” Mr. Falwell told his audience. “I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in …”

Later on Twitter, he said, “I was referring to ‘those Muslims’ that just carried out attacks in Paris and California.”

Mr. Falwell, who indicated during his comments that he was packing a weapon of his own, encouraged students to take a free concealed-carry class offered by the campus police department.

He said that Liberty had offered scholarships to the children of one of the first responders to the California shooting as well as to the six children of Michael Wetzel, one of the victims.