GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson is seeing fallout for his controversial statements on gun control. His backtracking plan has been ongoing for days, but Carson keeps on saying things that are even more outrageous. Is he trying to one-up himself? He already started off like gangbusters by insisting he would have confronted the Oregon shooter: “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.’ ”
Carson later sort of said he didn’t mean to insult the Oregon victims, but his continuing statements are even more bizarre. In the above interview with CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked Carson about statements from his book, A More Perfect Union, which attributed the Holocaust to Germany’s gun-control laws. In response, Carson said, the “likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.”
Then there was the sketchy story Carson told to Sirius XM on Wednesday. He described the time he was held at gunpoint in a Baltimore Popeye’s restaurant:
“Guy comes in and puts the gun in my ribs and I just said, ‘I believe you want the guy behind the counter.’ He said, ‘oh, OK,’ and went over there. I redirected him.”
According to Carson, he “redirected” the gunman after instructing him to point the gun at another human being. What an odd statement, and the Baltimore Police Department called shenanigans on Twitter by insinuating that Carson is making sh*t up.
Based on the information that #BenCarson mentioned, there was not enough info to identify a police report in reference to the incident.
— Baltimore Police (@BaltimorePolice) October 8, 2015
The department was not prepared for what happened next. Their tweet started a landslide of criticisms towards the department for stepping into the political arena instead of, uh, minding their own murder docket.
@BaltimorePolice I am surprised that with all the murders you are taking time out to insert the BPD into national presidential politics
— Charmcitycop (@charmcitycop) October 8, 2015
https://twitter.com/chuckd5267/status/652221862139695104
https://twitter.com/DROPPNBOMBZ/status/652220481769218052
@BaltimorePolice so not enough people dying in your city? you have time to fact check a Presidential candidate? your priorities are askew!
— JadedByPolitics (@JadedByPolitics) October 8, 2015
https://twitter.com/jake_bradford_1/status/652235233258000384
https://twitter.com/MathewSHarrison/status/652233928846147584
https://twitter.com/alohalarsen/status/652246041169920000
(Via SiriusXM)