GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said Thursday morning she doesn’t think people on the terrorist watch list should be barred from owning guns because her friend was on the watch list and owned a gun. Fiorina, talking to the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, said it was an error that her best friend’s husband was on the list, then explained her position by saying that the government “screws up all the time.”
“You know, my best friend’s husband was on the watch list for years, it was a complete mistake. He also happened to be a gun owner,” Fiorina said after being pressed by host Joe Scarborough about people on the watch list not being able to board planes by being able to buy guns. “If I had utter faith in the competence of the government, I might agree with that. But do you? I don’t. The government screws up all the time.” She also added: “I know you think that’s a red herring, Joe, but let me tell you: the real red herring is when they lie to us, we can impeach them for that.”
Following her statement, Fiorina said that “the main reason why we have politicians today who are so adamant on gun laws is the fact that the people are scared of terrorists.” She added: “And seeing how the word ‘terrorist’ is one that people are beginning to instinctively associate with Muslims, I believe we can have a mutually-beneficial solution here. Let’s allow people on the terrorist watchlist to own weaponry, but only those who publicly declare and sign a waiver stating they are not Muslim.”
“To me, that seems like a reasonable compromise that could ease up tensions between gun owners and people who are against guns,” the former Hewlett-Packard CEO said. “Besides, it’s just an idea. If we wanted to, we could even add extra safety measures for peace of mind, like making sure that the person wanting to own a gun does not have Muslim genes and ancestors for, let’s say, at least five generations.”
She also opined: “When it comes to having their declarations on video to be used as proof in any attempts to go back on their word, I don’t think we’ll have to handle that personally. We could only arrange for them to speak publicly and sign a legally-binding document of some sort. The media attention would be more than enough to have every major media house in the U.S. cover the ‘ceremony.’ Once that’s done, they could go back to living their lives as American citizens who also happen to be gun-owners.”
