Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee argued that gun control is “the false argument that this White House has made in an attempt to dodge the real issue” and expressed opposition to keeping people on the No-Fly List from buying guns in an interview broadcast on Friday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel.
Huckabee stated, “Was there any indication that either one of these shooters were unable to board a plane? No, there was not. In fact, they were fully vetted. They were able to come back into the country. She had a passport, she had a visa. This nonsense, that, well, they wouldn’t have been able to buy guns. This is the false argument that this White House has made in an attempt to dodge the real issue. There are people who are trying to kill us. they’re Islamic jihadists, and I don’t know why they can’t just come up and say it. They wouldn’t say it after Little Rock. They wouldn’t say it after Fort Hood. They wouldn’t say it after Oklahoma City. You have [the] Boston Marathon. How many times does this have to happen? He keeps asking us, how many times do we have to have mass shootings to get gun control? I’d like to ask him how many times do we have Islamic jihadist terror attacks, and him not be able to acknowledge what we’re fighting against?”
He added, “the problem is, most of the time, it is a name, not a background. It’s not the full identity. So, I’ve had friends, I’m sure all of us have, friends who ended up on that list because their name was the name of somebody that might have a suspicion, not necessarily even so much as a probable cause, but they were on the No-Fly List, and it took them months, if not a couple of years to get off of it. In the meantimes their lives were a living hell. Now, why would you put people through that. If you can’t, at that point, really say that this is a person you’re suspecting of terrorist activity, or some — even suspecting of criminal activity?”
Huckabee also said, in response to question on how the government would address homegrown terrorism, “I’m not sure that the government ever can completely understand what causes a person to be that demented, that off his rocker. Because I don’t think that any rational, sane person can think in those terms. Except that if you are a religious fanatic about something, and you believe that it is your God-given duty to go out and kill people because they’re infidels, then you can convince yourself. But then it becomes a theological issue, not just a psychological issue.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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