Dr. Ben Carson says President Barack Obama would have suffered a “seizure” if the gunman who targeted Christians as he shot up an Oregon college last week had singled out Muslims instead.
“He would've had a seizure over it,” Carson told Steve Malzberg in an exclusive interview that aired Tuesday on Newmax TV.
“Remember, he's been very reticent to mention Christians in the Middle East who are being massacred as well.
“I'm not sure why he has so much trouble actually articulating the words. It does make you wonder a little bit.”
In the Oregon tragedy, Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, reportedly asked his victims if they were Christians before executing his English professor and eight students at Umpqua Community College in rural Roseburg.
On Tuesday, Carson told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program he'd likely have stood up to the coldblooded killer.
"Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, 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 said.
Speaking with Malzberg on Newsmax TV, Carson — in second place behind Donald Trump in several national GOP presidential polls — said he believes Americans are aware Obama has not said much about the persecution of Christians.
“I'm not exactly sure how he thinks that people aren't noticing this but the important thing once again is we don't have to deal with him that much longer hopefully,” Carson said.
“If we can manage to get through this and begin to enact some logical solutions, we can come out of this pretty quickly.”
Carson — author of
"A More Perfect Union: What We the People Can Do to Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties,” written with his wife Candy and published by Sentinel — said while the president wants more gun laws, he hasn’t come up anything specific.
“Because there isn't [one]. This is not an issue of the gun. This is an issue of the gunman. We need to start looking at what are the characteristics of these people,” Carson said.
“We can probably, if we sit down and study this thing scientifically, begin to identify the kinds of personalities that are likely to be involved in this and we can begin to end it being early.
“Not only to save the lives of masses of people but of those individuals as well.”
Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon who has never run for office, said his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination has been “quite an adventure.”
“It's not totally surprising in the sense that all my life I've had people saying 'you can't do this. This is impossible.' I don't even get started until I hear those words,” he said.
And the fact he is not a politician in the traditional sense is okay, he believes.
“Doctors, scientists, engineers really have been trained to make decisions based on evidence as opposed to ideology,” Carson said.
“If there's anything we need right now is some evidence-based decision-making.”