Candidate Levi Tilleman thinks pepper spray is the answer to school violence. He’s absolutely convinced it will put down any attack. He’s so convinced he sprayed himself in the face with pepper spray to illustrate its effectiveness.

Well, Tilleman decided to step into the lion’s den by defending his campaign spot on Tucker Carlson’s show. For that, he deserves applause.

His first comment slamming some on the left does as well.

After that, it goes downhill. Watch for yourself.

Tilleman is right that some anti-gunners are delusional to think that gun control will somehow make all the guns already in circulation somehow disappear.

Yet he also seems to think that people like me believe school shooters are trained commandos and we need teachers to be commandos as well. That’s hardly a fair characterization of what anyone on this side of the debate thinks.

School shooters are not even close to trained commandos. They’re punks screaming for attention with a gun in their hands. They’re spoiled brats who don’t think the world has paid enough attention to them. It’s not even. Some, I’m convinced, are only barely toilet trained.

But that doesn’t mean they should be taken lightly either. These punks have created serious carnage through the years. They’ve taken a lot of lives during their temper tantrums. They plan their attacks for some time in advance. They know their targets. The Parkland killer knew the patterns following a fire alarm, for example, which he used to his advantage.

Tilleman seems a little preoccupied with the idea that these shootings take place at a range of eight feet. First, I’m curious what his source for that claim is. However, based on some of the things I’ve seen described as school shootings, I suspect it includes a lot of things that most folks wouldn’t count as school shootings at all.

Let’s say that he’s right. You know, just for the sake of argument.

Eight feet may be within the range of pepper spray, but it’s not nearly as effective as Tilleman tries to claim at that range. Not for everyone. See, for example, the video I included in my discussion of Tilleman’s campaign spot. In that one, though the range Tilleman is touting is well within the range of the pepper spray, the same thing was pretty ineffective against its target.

In other words, pepper spray has its place in a self-defense plan. It may even have its place in schools. Yet only a complete idiot would think that people who plan on killing as many people as possible wouldn’t plan for the existence of a can of spray in some way, shape, or form.

The truth is, most of these killings aren’t spur of the moment things. Tilleman is missing that fact.

Let’s also address the other part of his claim, that we somehow want teachers to be trained commandos. Frankly, that might even be dumber than thinking we believe mass shooters are Navy SEALs.

All any of us have been asking is that teachers with concealed carry permits be allowed to carry their firearms at work. You know, the same guns they carry without incident so many other places? We don’t think they should be training and setting up five-man stacks to breach classrooms that might have a shooter in them or anything. We’re simply saying they have the same right to self-defense the rest of us have. Nothing more, nothing less.

But Tilleman isn’t interested in engaging the actual arguments. He’d much rather joist against straw men.