GMTA — I just said the same thing in my post 17 :)
Asked by Beck for his thoughts on the Second Amendment, Carson gave the popular pro-gun argument: “There’s a reason for the Second Amendment; people do have the right to have weapons.”But when asked whether people should be allowed to own “semi-automatic weapons,” the doctor replied: “It depends on where you live.”
“I think if you live in the midst of a lot of people, and I’m afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it,” Carson elaborated.
However, if you live “out in the country somewhere by yourself” and want to own a semi-automatic weapon, he added, “I’ve no problem with that.”
So yes, I know all candidates are imperfect, and I'd swap Obama for this guy in a heartbeat. But the education he needs in constitutional principle is substantial. In the above quote he trivializes the constitutional basis for the right to keep and bear arms, turns it into a pseudo-pragmatic analysis that ignores the basic principle that everyone, regardless of where they live, has a) a right to life and a right to defend that life with lethal force when necessary, and b) the duty of all able Americans to stand ready to use private weapons in defense of the public good, as in for example the Battle of Athens, TN. That event was not about self-defense; it was an act of American defense, righteous defiance against corruption and oppression and home-town tyranny, and runs closer to the core meaning of the Second Amendment than even self-defense.
If the good Dr. has missed all that, he has missed a great deal, and I worry how he will hold up when tested on the other critical principles of constitutional governance.