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Ben Carson: Guns prevent tyranny, and may belong on campus
Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who's fought his way to co*frontrunner status in the Republican presidential primary, told USA Today's Susan Page Tuesday that he'd "feel much more comfortable" with more guns on campus in the hands of administrators or authority figures.
"If I had a little kid in kindergarten somewhere, we'd feel much more comfortable if I knew, on that campus, there was a police officer or someone who was trained with a weapon," said Carson, musing on last week's mass shooting at an Oregon college. "If the teacher was trained with a weapon, I'd be much more comfortable if they had one than if they didn't."
Carson's argument synced up perfectly with the one made by the National Rifle Association since the 2012 killings in Newtown, Conn. The NRA emerged from the debate over gun violence with a National School Shield Task Force, chaired by Asa Hutchinson, who's now the Republican governor of Arkansas. Its reported inaugurated a new NRA program to offer gun training to school safety officer. "As more [armed] officers have been assigned to schools, school death rates have decreased," argued the task force. "These numbers support the notion that the presence of armed officers positively impacts the school environment."
The NRA's lobbying and the Republican victories of 2014 were boons to the cause of arming campuses. This summer, Texas passed sought*after legislation to allow students to carry guns. But as the Oregonian reported, and as many presidential candidates have ignored, the campus where the shooting occurred was not a gun*free zone. That's left Carson and others speaking hypothetically about how more guns might have changed the calculus on campus.
"Let me ask you: What stopped the shooter from shooting anyone else?" former Arkansas Mike Huckabee asked Newsmax host Steve Malzberg in an interview last week. "The guy with a gun, that's who."
It was a police officer ** not a student ** who ended the Oregon killing spree by exchanging fire with the shooter. In his interview with Page, however, Carson said that his own views on gun ownership grew more laissez* faire once he started "getting more into the history of this country" and considered how an unarmed citizenry could be at risk.
"When you look at tyranny and how it occurs, the pattern is so consistent: Get rid of the guns," said Carson.
In his interview with Malzberg, Huckabee suggested that the media consider whether its own coverage was a bigger contributing factor in killings than the availability of guns.
"Rather than the president tinkering with the Second Amendment, he might want to propose tinkering with the First Amendment, and maybe say that we will not say this guy's name on the air, not put his picture on the air," said Huckabee. "Refer to him as the savage, the animal, the thug."
Carson, Jindal, Huckabee, cite cultural decline for gun killing sprees - The Washington Post
Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who's fought his way to co*frontrunner status in the Republican presidential primary, told USA Today's Susan Page Tuesday that he'd "feel much more comfortable" with more guns on campus in the hands of administrators or authority figures.
"If I had a little kid in kindergarten somewhere, we'd feel much more comfortable if I knew, on that campus, there was a police officer or someone who was trained with a weapon," said Carson, musing on last week's mass shooting at an Oregon college. "If the teacher was trained with a weapon, I'd be much more comfortable if they had one than if they didn't."
Carson's argument synced up perfectly with the one made by the National Rifle Association since the 2012 killings in Newtown, Conn. The NRA emerged from the debate over gun violence with a National School Shield Task Force, chaired by Asa Hutchinson, who's now the Republican governor of Arkansas. Its reported inaugurated a new NRA program to offer gun training to school safety officer. "As more [armed] officers have been assigned to schools, school death rates have decreased," argued the task force. "These numbers support the notion that the presence of armed officers positively impacts the school environment."
The NRA's lobbying and the Republican victories of 2014 were boons to the cause of arming campuses. This summer, Texas passed sought*after legislation to allow students to carry guns. But as the Oregonian reported, and as many presidential candidates have ignored, the campus where the shooting occurred was not a gun*free zone. That's left Carson and others speaking hypothetically about how more guns might have changed the calculus on campus.
"Let me ask you: What stopped the shooter from shooting anyone else?" former Arkansas Mike Huckabee asked Newsmax host Steve Malzberg in an interview last week. "The guy with a gun, that's who."
It was a police officer ** not a student ** who ended the Oregon killing spree by exchanging fire with the shooter. In his interview with Page, however, Carson said that his own views on gun ownership grew more laissez* faire once he started "getting more into the history of this country" and considered how an unarmed citizenry could be at risk.
"When you look at tyranny and how it occurs, the pattern is so consistent: Get rid of the guns," said Carson.
In his interview with Malzberg, Huckabee suggested that the media consider whether its own coverage was a bigger contributing factor in killings than the availability of guns.
"Rather than the president tinkering with the Second Amendment, he might want to propose tinkering with the First Amendment, and maybe say that we will not say this guy's name on the air, not put his picture on the air," said Huckabee. "Refer to him as the savage, the animal, the thug."
Carson, Jindal, Huckabee, cite cultural decline for gun killing sprees - The Washington Post
