With billionaire Donald Trump blaming the Mexicans for America’s murder and theft rates and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio comparing the recent shooting in Oregon to abortion, the 2016 GOP candidates don’t seem to be so promising when it comes to appealing to younger, more modern voters. This includes neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has been receiving a great deal of backlash for some of his comments in the media.
In a recent interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer — whose parents were survivors of the Holocaust — Carson stated that Hitler’s killing of the Jews would have been “greatly diminished” if the victims had been in possession of firearms. He also said that being gay is a conscious choice because “a lot of people go into prison straight and when they come out they’re gay.”
Despite all of this, Carson is only five points behind Trump in the latest polls, and he encompasses 18 percent of GOP voters, according to Real Clear Politics. His super PAC, which includes 31,000 volunteers, raised $3 million this fall, beating its fundraising goal, according to CNN. Which brings the question, why are people taking Carson seriously as a candidate?
Ignoring the fact that he brought up the systematic killing of a group of people to a man whose grandparents died in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Carson discussed the historical event in his book “A More Perfect Union,” stating that, “Through a combination of removing guns and disseminating deceitful propaganda, the Nazis were able to carry out their evil intentions with relatively little resistance,” further continuing his argument against gun control.
These statements piggyback a myth that the gun lobby has been spreading for several decades. More than 20 years ago, Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association wrote that the extermination of Jews began in 1938 when Hitler signed the Nazi Weapon Law that “required police permission of ownership of a handgun.”
Both LaPierre and Carson’s statements just don’t make sense. A Jewish family living in a Polish ghetto would not stand a chance against the SS officers who were constantly heavily armed, even if they had a handgun in their possession. Carson’s constant usage of the Holocaust in his political statements is not only historically inaccurate, but highly offensive to those who went through the traumatic event and those who are related to survivors.
Carson’s distaste for gun control doesn’t stop at the Holocaust, however; he blamed the victims of the Umpqua Community College for their own deaths, saying that “I would not just stand there and let him shoot me,” during an interview with FOX News, inferring that he couldn’t believe that the students didn’t retaliate with their own weapons.
To top it off, Carson wasn’t a registered Republican until 2014. With all of these things in mind, why would the U.S. want a leader as wishy-washy as Ben Carson? Sure, he’s just as rude and un-apologetic as Donald Trump, but at least Trump hasn’t personally victimized CNN’s golden boy, Wolf Blitzer, on live TV. With the 2016 election almost a year away, the GOP has plenty of time to whip up even more disastrous comments from its presidential candidates.