On Wednesday’s CBS This Morning, the show’s three hosts spent the entirety of a 7 minute interview with Dr. Ben Carson grilling the Republican presidential candidate from the left over his support for the Second Amendment.
After reporter Julianna Goldman ran an anti-Carson piece during the 7:00 a.m. hour in which she played up his “controversial comments” following the Oregon school shooting, during the 8:00 hour, co-host Gayle King tried to lecture the retired neurosurgeon on the meaning behind the Second Amendment.
King used liberal talking points to assert that the Second Amendment wasn’t intended to allow for private use of weapons that extended beyond muskets at the time the U.S. Constitution was written:
At the time of the Second Amendment though they were talking about muskets they weren't talking about the AK 47s and the high-powered rifles that we have today. You write in your book that you thought the ban on military-style assault weapons was a good idea but you’ve now written that you've since changed your mind. What changed your mind?
Carson stressed that while the type of weapons available to the public has certainly changed since our nation’s founding, the underlying principle embedded in the Second Amendment remain firm:
So what were the principles of the Second Amendment? And those principles were we wanted to make sure that the people had the ability to assist the military in case of an invasion and that the people also had the ability to protect themselves from an overly aggressive federal government...Now, obviously, if we say, well, we are talking about muskets, so, yeah, you can have a musket, but as we advance in terms of our weaponry you can't have any of those things. That violates the principle.
King also hit Carson for his comments that had he been in the Oregon classroom he would have attempted to tackle the shooter in order to limit the number of victims:
You're being accused this morning though of being insensitive to the victims because people say, look, you don’t really know what you'll do if, God forbid, you're ever in that situation. How do you respond to that?
Not to be outdone, Charlie Rose brought up prominent gun control advocate former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as an opportunity to grill Carson on his support for gun rights:
Michael Bloomberg, a former mayor, is also close to the university that you worked, Johns Hopkins, a proud graduate. He has become a very, very strong advocate for gun control. What is it that he doesn't understand that you understand?
The rest of the interview focused on what steps Carson believes should be taken as a society to try and stop future mass shootings but the CBS hosts seemed uninterested in asking the Republican presidential candidate any questions about his actual campaign and instead chose to focus exclusively on liberal outrage over his support for the Second Amendment.
CBS This Morning
October 7, 2015
NORAH O’DONNELL: This morning, one of the leading Republican presidential candidates, Dr. Ben Carson, is facing controversy over comments he made about the Oregon school shooting.
BEN CARSON: 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.
O’DONNELL: A new Quinnipiac poll shows Carson in second place to Donald Trump in three swing states, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Carson is out with a new book, it’s called "A more perfect union: what the people can do to reclaim our constitutional liberties." The book covers everything from gun rights to freedom of religion. And we are pleased to welcome Dr. Carson to Studio 57. Good to have you here.
CARSON: Thank you.
O’DONNELL: What did you mean when you said, I would not just stand there?
CARSON: I want to plant in people's minds what to do in a situation like this. Because unfortunately, this is probably not going to be the last time this happens.
O’DONNELL: Do you believe the victims in Oregon just stood there?
CARSON: From the indications that I got, they did not rush the shooter. The shooter can only shoot one person at a time. He cannot shoot a whole group of people. And so the idea is overwhelm him so everybody doesn't get killed.
O’DONNELL: Do you know who Chris Mintz is?
CARSON: No.
O’DONNELL: So Chris Mintz is a an army veteran and he was shot 7 times. He did actually rush the shooter and he’s being hailed as a hero. He actually blocked the door, he saved people’s lives so someone in the instance did actually act heroic.
CARSON: And that verifies what I’m saying. That is exactly what should be done. And if everybody does that, the likelihood of him being able to kill as many people diminishes quite significantly.
KING: You're being accused this morning though of being insensitive to the victims because people say, look, you don’t really know what you'll do if, God forbid, you're ever in that situation. How do you respond to that?
CARSON: I respond to that by saying we live in a culture now where people decide that everything you say, we need to set up battle lines and we need to get on this side of it or that side of it rather than collectively trying to figure out how we solve the problem. It's sort of an immature attitude but it seems to be something that’s rampant in America today.
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, the question is what do we do about this? I mean, everybody expects that it will happen again. The president even says it's become routine. So how does the nation come to grip with this fact? It's a combination of who’s doing it, access to weapons, and the opportunity.
CARSON: Well, you know, in medicine, we have a tendency to make decisions based on evidence, not on ideology. So, let's say this were a disease. What we would be saying is let's take each one of these shooters and let's go back and let's study their lives, and let's see if we can see some commonalities here. Are there some early warning signals for people like this so that we can begin to identify them and intervene before the tragedies occurs not only for those people who were shot but for the shooter themselves.
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KING: At the time of the Second Amendment though they were talking about muskets they weren't talking about the AK 47s and the high-powered rifles that we have today. You write in your book that you thought the ban on military-style assault weapons was a good idea but you’ve now written that you've since changed your mind. What changed your mind?
CARSON: Well, you'll also see that I talked about the fact that they recognize that things would change. That we would become a more modern society, that we would face different situations, but we had to recognize that it was the principles that were important. So what were the principles of the Second Amendment?
And those principles were we wanted to make sure that the people had the ability to assist the military in case of an invasion and that the people also had the ability to protect themselves from an overly aggressive federal government. That was a very important part of the reason for it. Now, obviously, if we say, well, we are talking about muskets, so, yeah, you can have a musket, but as we advance in terms of our weaponry you can't have any of those things. That violates the principle.
ROSE: Michael Bloomberg, a former mayor, is also close to the university that you worked, Johns Hopkins, a proud graduate. He has become a very, very strong advocate for gun control. What is it that he doesn't understand that you understand?
CARSON: Well, I think we ought to get him to answer that question.
ROSE: But let me get with you first and then I'll go to him.
CARSON: What I understand quite vividly is what Daniel Webster said. Daniel Webster said America will never suffer under tyranny because the people are armed. That's what I understand. So I don't want to see tyranny occur here. You know, Adams also said that there may come a time when we do not have good people at the helm of our country. We can't always assume that it's going to be that case.
KING: You've criticized President Obama who is going to Oregon on Friday to meet with some of the victims' families. You said it's becoming a political issue. Can you change this conversation without politicizing it?
CARSON: Well, first of all, let's set the record straight. What I was asked if I were president, would I go? And I said, no, not if it was going to open wounds and inflict, you know, a lot of controversy, I would not. I said I would have probably lots of other things on my schedule that I could do. But the other thing -- this is important. The other thing is I don't think I would have the push back if I were president because I wouldn't be picking and choosing which groups I sympathize with. I would have talked with Kate Stinley’s family–
KING: In San Francisco.
CARSON: Who was killed by an illegal alien. You have to be compassionate to everybody. You don't pick and choose who you're going to be compassionate to.
ROSE: So if in fact you as president could play a role and express the nation's grief in going to Oregon, you would be pleased to do that and you would object to a president whose effort is to console the griever of a nation and the families who have been suffering?
CARSON: I wouldn't object to such an objective.
