Ben Carson says he wants “better due process” for people on terrorism watch lists before banning members of those lists from buying guns.
The retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential contender said on ABC’s “This Week” that he’s concerned that “there are a lot of people on that watch list and they have no idea why they’re on that list and they’ve been trying to get their names off of it, and no one will give them information.”
“I am a big supporter of the Second Amendment, and I don’t want to deprive people unnecessarily of that. There needs to be better due process,” Carson said.
His comments come amid renewed interest a federal proposal that would ban terror watch list members from buying weapons.
But Carson focused his answer more on people placed on the list inappropriately, saying he wants to find “a way to make government more responsive to the people.”
“It’s really unfair that people can’t get a real hearing,” Carson said. “And they get put on a list and nobody can tell them why they’re there, and they go through for years and years and they have to be tormented. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Carson also wouldn’t say whether he would re-institute waterboarding as an interrogation tactic. Fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said earlier on the program that he would reverse President Barack Obama’s ban on its use.
“I agree that there’s no such thing as political correctness when you’re fighting an enemy who wants to destroy you and everything that you have anything to do with,” Carson said. “And I’m not one who is real big on telling the enemy what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do.”