Something really remarkable happened on Tuesday’s edition of The View. Three out of the four panelists actually came out strongly in favor of a woman’s right to protect herself and her children with a gun! The one panelist who didn’t want a gun in the house? ABC Good Morning America co-host Lara Spencer. The three who favored firearm ownership (Sherri Shepherd, Jenny McCarthy and FNC’s Juliet Huddy) all shared the real world threats that prompted them to go get a gun.
The segment began with The View airing a new ad from the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety but instead of sparking the expected rant against guns from the usually liberal View crew, something very different happened.
First up Shepherd offered her “flipside” to the ad that featured a man assaulting her mother and child with a gun: “The flipside is when I was at my home and the alarm went off, and I ran to my son’s bedroom and Jeffrey was crying, and I realized all I had to protect me and somebody coming around that corner was a daggone wicker trash basket. And I said to myself and everybody said to me, ‘well get a bat.’ You got one chance to use a bat and if they take it away. ‘Get pepper stray.’ You know how close they got to get to you, if you use pepper spray? You got one of these? [makes a gesture like she’s holding a gun and makes a sound of cocking a gun] They’re not gonna come near you and your child! So when you’re standing there, and you don’t know how to protect your child? Get a gun in your home!”
Huddy then shared the time she was faced with a stalker: “And I remember feeling so vulnerable. And I just remember constantly going to sleep at night wishing that I could go over and grab my dad’s gun.” McCarthy had a similar experience to Shepherd as she revealed: “I’ve been in circumstances like Sherri where, you know people tried to break in and I’m with my son going, I wish I had something to protect myself with.”
When Spencer expressed her nervousness that “I have two kids. I would never want a gun in the house,” both Shepherd and McCarthy tried to assuage her fears.
The following is a complete transcript of the segment as it was aired on the July 29 edition of ABC’s The View:
JENNY MCCARTHY: People who would definitely disagree with the NFL ruling is a gun safety group that is trying to pressure Republican senators to support gun restriction laws for domestic abuser with a brutal PSA. Now, warning, get your kids out of the room. Because this is pretty disturbing. Take a look.
[Everytown for Gun Safety Ad]
MCCARTHY: Right? Effective, Lara?
LARA SPENCER, ABC’s GOOD MORNING AMERICA: I would say highly effective. I mean so upsetting. Very strong message. And-
SHERRI SHEPHERD: For not getting a gun? For, for having gun safety?
SPENCER: Well right, but that’s, that’s the catch here.
SHEPHERD: Can I tell you, can I tell you the flipside of that. And that is absolutely so disturbing, but the flipside is when I was at my home and the alarm went off, and I ran to my son’s bedroom and Jeffrey was crying, and I realized all I had to protect me and somebody coming around that corner was a daggone wicker trash basket. And I said to myself and everybody said to me, “well get a bat.” You got one chance to use a bat and if they take it away. “Get pepper stray.” You know how close they got to get to you, if you use pepper spray? You got one of these? [makes a gesture like she’s holding a gun and makes a sound of cocking a gun] They’re not gonna come near you and your child! So when you’re standing there, and you don’t know how to protect your child ? Get a gun in your home!
JULIET HUDDY, FOX NEWS: Well I was gonna say when I was in my in my early twenties I had a stalker. A lot of people have that situation whether they are on TV or not on TV. And I remember feeling so vulnerable. And I just remember constantly going to sleep at night wishing that I could go over and grab my dad’s gun. You know? And keep it behind my bed. You know the knife? The butcher knife in the kitchen wasn’t gonna work for me. You know?
SPENCER: I have two kids. I would never want a gun in the house.
[crosstalk]
MCCARTHY: I’ve been in circumstances like Sherri where, you know people tried to break in and I’m with my son going, “I wish I had something to protect myself with.”
SHEPHERD: I think that’s the thing when you’re standing there and if you’ve ever been in that situation where you have children and you go what do I have?
MCCARTHY to SPENCER: I used to think like you.
SHEPHERD to SPENCER: I used to think like you too. When you’re sitting there going-
SPENCER to MCCARTHY: What changed you?
MCCARTHY: That happened to me. They were trying to get in and I felt out of control and I had a child, and I was thinking to myself I wish I had a gun and I wish, you know, I have it very well protected now. There’s no way. Locked up.
SHEPHERD: Locked up, go to the gun range, know how to use it. There was a man who broke into a woman’s house. She was up in the attic. She had her two twins. He, as soon as he put his face in the attic she shot him. I betcha he’ll never try to break into that woman’s house again.
MCCARTHY: Long story short, don’t come at me and Sherri’s house!
— Geoffrey Dickens is Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter. [1]