Gohmert: 'I wish to God' Connecticut principal had an M4 assault rifle

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Sunday insisted that a tragic massacre at Sandy Forks Elementary School in Connecticut could have been prevented if Principal Dawn Hochsprung had been armed with an M4 carbine, an assault rifle designed by the U.S. military for urban warfare.

During an interview on Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Gohmert if he still believed that the country would be safer if more people were armed as he had said after a mass shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colorado earlier this year.

"Every mass killing of more than three people in recent history has been in a place where guns were prohibited -- except for one," the Texas Republican explained. "They choose this place, they know no one will be armed."

Gohmert became emotional as he continued: "You know, having been and judge and having reviewed photographs of these horrific scenes and knowing that children have these defensive wounds -- gunshots through their arms and hands as they try to protect themselves -- and hearing the heroic stories the principal, lunging trying to protect -- Chris, I wish to God she had had an M4 in her office locked up. So, when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands, but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids."

Wallace noted that when the Second Amendment was written, weapons like the AR-15 Adam Lanza used to kill 20 children last week -- which can shoot up to five rounds in a second -- did not exist.

"These were created for law enforcement, these were created for the military," Wallace observed. "Why does the average person -- I can understand a hunting rifle, I can understand and handgun -- why do they need these weapons of mass destruction?"

"Well, for the reason George Washington said: a free people should be an armed people," Gohmert replied. "It insures against the tyranny of the government if they know that the biggest army is the American people then you don't have the tyranny that came from King George."

"Once you start drawing the line, when do you stop?" he wondered. "You use your head and you look at the facts."

Watch this video from Fox News' Fox News Sunday, broadcast Dec. 16, 2012.