If you’re underwhelmed by Jeb Bush, don’t think he’s conservative enough, think he’s uninspiring, etcetera . . . I’m not so sure his appearance on Stephen Colbert’s debut as host of The Late Show last night did much to reassure you.
Colbert asked a question from a viewer that basically contended that gun control is wildly popular, and only “a well-organized minority has stymied all progress, and weekly we see the deadly consequences.”
Bush touted that Florida has a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases. “We have simple checks to make sure that people that are criminals are not accessing guns. I think the next step is to figure out ways to make sure that we can, uh, if people who have mental-health issues, which is really the common denominator in these violent, tragic cases, where people are getting access to mental health, and we don’t even know if they have real issues.”
When Bush made the argument that gun laws should be set at the state level, Colbert responded, “The right to have an individual firearm to protect yourself is [in] a national document, the Constitution. So shouldn’t the way it should be applied actually be national?” Bush pointed to the Tenth Amendment, “powers are given to the states to create policy, and the federal government is not the end-all and be-all. That’s an important value for this country, it’s a federalist system and it works quite well.”
Colbert inadvertently actually made the case for why gun-control advocates should be attempting to amend the Constitution, instead of these backdoor efforts to deny Second Amendment rights based upon allegedly “common sense regulations.”
Jeb did have more fun later, giving Colbert’s written “Trumpier” answer on the Iran deal: “I will build a wall between the United States and Iran, and make Mexico pay for it!”