A former Arizona sheriff who has taken the side of cattle ranchers in Nevada said this week that he would have allowed his own wife and daughters to be shot as human shields because it would look bad for the federal government on television.

In a statement to Fox News on Monday that was first flagged by Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, former Sheriff Richard Mack talked about his strategy to put women on the front lines if a gunfight broke out between “rogue federal agents” and rancher Cliven Bundy, who reportedly owes the taxpayers more than $1 million for allowing his cattle to graze on government land.

“We were actually strategizing to put all the women up at the front,” he recalled. “If they are going to start shooting, it’s going to be women that are going to be televised all across the world getting shot by these rogue federal officers."