William Weld, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts selected to be Gary Johnson’s running mate on the Libertarian ticket, just made one of the mind-blowingly stupid comments I’ve heard a politician make regarding firearms, bar none.

16 minutes and 50 seconds into an interview with Revolt TV, Weld dropped this stunning statement.

“The five-shot rifle, that’s a standard military rifle; the problem is if you attach a clip to it so it can fire more shells and if you remove the pin so that it becomes an automatic weapon, and those are independent criminal offenses,” Weld said. “That is when they become, essentially, a weapon of mass destruction. The problem with handguns probably is even worse than the problem of the AR15.”

It’s actually impressive that Weld was able to pack so much idiocy into a disjointed series of utter falsehoods.

Allow me the opportunity to unpack this so you can appreciate Weld’s statement for in all of it’s moronic glory.

“The five-shot rifle, that’s a standard military rifle;

The last five-shot rifle issued to the United States military as a “standard military rifle” was the 1903 Springfield, first adopted more than a century ago and phased out when the semi-automatic M1 Garand was standardized January 9, 1936, nine-and-a-half years before the 71-year-old Weld was born.

the problem is if you attach a clip to it

The aforementioned M1 Garand was the last clip-fed rifle issued to American soldiers.

No modern military firearms (and very few revolvers) are clip-fed. They all use magazines.

I’d further note that you can’t “attach a clip” to a rifle, you insert it, but that’s clearly beyond his grasp.

Rifles and handguns use cartridges, or more colloquially, bullets. “Shells” are a term for either shotgun cartridges or hollowed-out explosive-filled ammunition used by artillery. It’s just awkward.

and if you remove the pin so that it becomes an automatic weapon,

The “very special” Mr. Weld seems to think that a five-shot bolt-action rifle from World War I can be turned into a machine gun by affixing an obsolete ammunition holding device to it a removing a pin.

Mr. Weld seems to be under the impression that all guns are equipped with a magic metal pin that, if removed, will turn them into run-away engines of death.

I wish I was kidding, but I’m not.

So what happens when you put all these elements together, Bill?

“The five-shot rifle, that’s a standard military rifle; the problem is if you attach a clip to it so it can fire more shells and if you remove the pin so that it becomes an automatic weapon, and those are independent criminal offenses,” Weld said. “That is when they become, essentially, a weapon of mass destruction.”

… attach clips to it…

…pull a pin…

and then it will turn into a chemical, biological or radioactive weapon capable of causing widespread death and destruction.

I think it’s self-evident that Governor Weld doesn’t have the first clue what he’s talking about, and that he’s been sharing a bong with his running mate.

Sadly, after dumping on common rifles in such a mind-numbingly stupid way showing that he knows less about firearms than virtually any politician in the United States today (and that’s saying a lot), Weld then goes on to attack handguns, suggesting that he’d be in favor of banning them as well.

The problem with handguns probably is even worse than the problem of the AR-15.

Weld then went on to state his very anti-libertarian belief that he believed people arbitrarily placed on lists by the government without due process should be stripped of their core constitutional rights without due process.

Why is he on the Libertarian Party ticket?