NORTH CAROLINA: GOP Rep Proposes Arming Teachers Because Shootings Are Plots By Communist Democrats

The Raleigh News & Observer reports:

On Thursday morning, Republican state Rep. Larry Pittman of Cabarrus County near Charlotte told other lawmakers that he recently met with a police officer who wants to talk with lawmakers about training school personnel and allowing them to carry guns on campus.

In a Facebook comment on another user’s post, Pittman speculated the Florida shooter was part of a conspiracy to “push for gun control so they can more easily take over the country.” That user’s post later was deleted. Some people online had circulated a photo [below] of a man who is not the suspected shooter, according to Snopes.

Pittman’s full comment: “Not surprising to see the people depicted on his T-shirt. So many of these shooters turn out to be communist democrats, that I suspect they are doing these things to push for gun control so they can more easily take over the country.”

RELATED: Pittman has authored several anti-LGBT bills and was a co-sponsor of North Carolina’s infamous bathroom bill. Oh, and there’s this from last year:

N.C. Rep. Larry Pittman, a Concord Republican, said in a Facebook post Wednesday that President Abraham Lincoln was a “tyrant” similar to Germany’s Adolf Hitler.

Pittman was responding to commenters on his campaign Facebook page who were criticizing his bill that would have directed state government to defy a U.S. Supreme Court ruling and restore the state constitution’s ban on same-sex marriage. House Speaker Tim Moore said Wednesday that the bill is dead and won’t get a hearing.

Pittman’s response: “And if Hitler had won, should the world just get over it? Lincoln was the same sort (of) tyrant, and personally responsible for the deaths of over 800,000 Americans in a war that was unnecessary and unconstitutional.”

Pittman is also a pastor. Of course.