Anti-gun groups on Wednesday reacted with outrage and disbelief to comments made by potential Republican US presidential candidate Ben Carson about a gun massacre at an Oregon college.
A gunman at Umpqua Community College killed nine people on Thursday last week and injured nine others before taking his own life. The father of one survivor said the gunman, Christopher Harper-Mercer, asked a number of victims whether they were Christian before killing them.
In a Tuesday appearance on Fox News, Carson — a retired neurosurgeon currently performing strongly in the polls and with fundraisers — was asked to put himself in the shoes of someone approached by a gunman and asked to declare his or her faith.
Photo: Reuters
“I’m glad you asked that question,” Carson said. “Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, ‘Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me but he can’t get us all.’”
Then Carson smiled and chuckled.
Carson also told USA Today that kindergarten instructors should have weapons training.
“If the teacher was trained in the use of that weapon and had access to it, I would be much more comfortable if they had one than if they didn’t,” he said of guns.
And he told a Facebook question-and-answer session on Monday that although he had removed many bullets from bodies as a doctor, the right to bear arms took precedence over potential danger.
“I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away,” he said.
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years now and those were some of the ugliest comments that I’ve ever heard,” Coalition to Stop Gun Violence spokesperson Ladd Everitt said.
Everitt, whose organization’s staff includes family members of victims of gun violence, said Carson had “basically blamed the victims for their own deaths” and added to the pain of the victims’ families.
“His suggesting that if he had been there, he could have taken the shooter down through the power of Christ or somehow, it’s just unbelievable,” Everitt said. “You begin to question this man’s mental health, doing this with a smile on his face and thinking it’s acceptable.”
“I think it shows how insane Republican politics are at this point in history, how totally insane that they would have that man on, and he’s saying these things and then they’re nodding at him,” Everitt said.
The Carson campaign did not reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Earlier in the same Fox News appearance, Carson acknowledged the victims’ families, saying “the poor family of those individuals had to be hurting so badly.”
The pro-gun National Rifle Association did not reply to a request for comment.
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