GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson said Wednesday that he once came face-to-face with a gunman, but instead of taking him down -- as Carson said he would have if he had been present at a recent school shooting in Oregon -- he directed him to a different person.
"I have had a gun held on me when I was in a Popeye's organization," Carson told host Karen Hunter on Sirius XM Radio Wednesday, referring to the fast food chain.
"Guy comes in, puts the gun in my ribs. And I just said, 'I believe that you want the guy behind the counter,'" the candidate continued. "He said, 'Oh, okay,' and moved on."
"I would not just stand there and let him shoot me," Carson said. "I would say, 'Hey, guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.'"
UCC shooter Christopher Harper-Mercer had six guns with him at the school (and seven more at home). Witnesses said that Harper-Mercer asked some of the victims to state their religion -- and that they likely complied in the hope that he would spare their lives -- but he reportedly killed them no matter what they answered.
Mathew Downing, who survived the UCC shooting, criticized Carson's comments on Wednesday.
"I'm fairly upset he said that. Nobody could truly understand what actions they would take like that in a situation unless they lived it," he told CNN.
On Monday night, Carson also wrote on Facebook that the Oregon shooting hadn't changed his opposition to increased restrictions on gun ownership, because he "never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away."
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