Good for Marco Rubio and Rick Perry blasting Donald Trump's stupid comments

Marco Rubio didn't hold anything back when he recently went after Donald Trump's comments:

Trump’s comments are not just offensive and inaccurate, but also divisive. Our next president needs to be someone who brings Americans together – not someone who continues to divide. Our broken immigration system is something that needs to be solved, and comments like this move us further from – not closer to – a solution. We need leaders who offer serious solutions to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system. . . .

Previously Rick Perry had similarly taken Trump to task (from the video here):

I don’t think he’s reflecting the Republican party with his statements about Mexicans. I think that was a huge error on his part.  And number 1 it is wrong. . . . He painted with a very broad brush and that is the problem. . . . Where he tried to say that Mexicans are bad people, they are rapists and murderers. . . .

Take what Trump says about trade is wrong. 

While I'm a Republican, right now, some in the Republican Party are working overtime to hand more power to President Obama.  These same people are turning their backs on the American workers and businesses. It's unbelievable.  

"I learned a long time ago, a bad deal is far worse than no deal at all.  And the Obama Trans-Pacific Partnership and fast-track are a bad, bad deal for American businesses, for workers, for taxpayers. It's a huge set of handouts for a few insiders that don't even care about our great, great America.  

Congress has to stand up and defeat this raw power grab. With the dismal Obama track record, why should a Republican Congress give him more power and gut the Constitution to do it? It's just crazy. Tell your congressmen and senators, vote no on fast-track.

This trade deal is a "bad deal for American businesses"?  Not allowing trade is a handout to specially favored companies that one allows to charge higher prices.  Can trade deals be set up to still protect certain companies from competition?  Sure, but when you have even more firms protected you have even more firms that are given special favors.  There is not a specific example in any of Trump's comments.

Other wrong Trump claims include his promise that he will be able to get the Mexicans to pay for the fence (see starting at 1:14 into video) or to get them to pay for the cost of illegals in the US.  On the nutty getting them to pay for the fence by taxing their products being put into the US, does Trump understand that would abrogate our treaties and also start a trade war?  It is just an irresponsible statement.

Trump also claims that Mexicans in the US actually commit crimes at a higher rate than others. As far as I can tell, he doesn't back up anything that he says.  

It isn't clear how conservatives will react to Trump's views on other issues.  He has said some reasonable things on guns, but he has also made statements that would concern many.

"It’s often argued that the American murder rate is high because guns are more available here than in other countries. Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed. The Republicans walk the NRA line and refuse even limited restrictions. . . . I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun. With today’s Internet technology we should be able to tell within 72-hours if a potential gun owner has a record." -- Donald Trump in his book The America We Deserve (2000).

While Trump owns a number of guns and describes himself as "a gun person," he either doesn't know much about guns or he is willing to make things up.  On so-called assault weapons, Trump noted "who needs them except criminals and police?"  It is possible that his heart is in the right place, but that he is simply misspoken.  I hope that is the case.

From 2011 to this year, Trump also kept on forcefully pushing the crazy birther claim that Obama was actually born in Kenya (see here, here, here, here, and here).

The problem is that with so many Republican candidates in the race, someone can be doing very well with 14% of the vote.

Trump is also not someone to greatly respect private property rights.  He has an apparently long history of using the government's eminent domain power to take other people's property.

UPDATE: Note every group in the population contains rapists.  The question with Donald Trumps comments is whether illegal immigrants from Mexico commit rape at a higher rate than other groups in the population.  Here is Donald Trump's defense of his claim:

LEMON: I read [the stats], that’s about women being raped. It’s not about criminals coming across the border entering the country. 

TRUMP: Somebody’s doing the raping, Don. I mean, you know, somebody’s doing it. You say it’s women being raped. Well, who’s doing the raping? Well, how can you say such a thing?

Even if the evidence eventually supported Trump's claim, this is a lame defense of it.

UPDATED POST

Newest piece at Fox News: "Lynne Russell, ex-CNN anchor, and her husband are alive thanks to a gun"

John Lott has a new piece at Fox News on Lynne Russell and her husband defending themselves with a gun.

Lynne Russell and her husband, Chuck de Caro, believe they would be dead if she hadn’t been carrying a gun. Late Wednesday night, Russell was forced at gunpoint from a motel parking lot into her room. The robber, not satisfied with merely taking her husband’s briefcase, started shooting at him. Fortunately, Russell had handed de Caro her purse, with her handgun inside it. De Caro shot the attacker, who later died at the hospital. 

This story made national news. ABC News, NBC News, Fox News, People Magazine and even such foreign publications as the UK Guardian newspaper mentioned that Russell, a CNN anchor from 1983 to 2001, and de Caro both had concealed handgun permits. 

We see these stories every day, some of the heroic actions caught on video and others where the criminal is killed, but you would never know it, because the national media continually ignore them. The case with Russell is an exception because she is a public figure. 

To illustrate how common such defense is, consider a few other cases that occurred over the last week where permitted concealed handguns stopped crimes: . . .

The rest of the piece is available here.

Gov Christie points to benefit of gun ownership by women, insight into Carol Bowne's views on guns for protection

An article in the Courier-Post lays out not only Gov. Chris Christie's views on obtaining guns but also more insight into Carol Bowne's views.  She was the 39-year-old hairdresser who was fatally stabbed outside her Berlin Township home while awaiting the state's permission to buy a gun for protection from an ex-boyfriend.  From the Courier-Post:

. . . Christie said the "fundamental right" to bear arms "is all the more important for those who are victims of violence or under threat."

The governor's actions drew a mixed response from Bowne's father, Sonny Ehly of Voorhees.

"It's too late now for my daughter. It's after the fact," said Ehly, who described himself as "angry, very very angry."

"But I hope for other people, they'll get justice," the father said. "If it helps another woman, or a man, that would be good."

"I'm behind the right to carry guns." . . .

Carol Browne's father surely believes that his daughter would have been much safer if she had been able to get a gun for protection.  It also sounds as if her father had strongly supported her effort to get a gun.  

These proposed rules still seem much too restrictive to me.

Under Christie's proposed changes, a request to buy or carry a gun would have to be resolved within 14 days if the applicant:

•Is the victim of violence or threatened with violence or a deadly weapon, "and there is a substantial likelihood of another such incident in the foreseeable future."

•Lives under a demonstrable threat, as evidenced by a restraining order against someone who poses the "substantial likelihood" of violence or a threat with a deadly weapon.