On Monday at The New York Meeting, Dr. Ben Carson said he does not believe in gun registration because America’s massive debt could transform the nation into a third-world country in which martial law may be imposed.

Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has been getting buzz in conservative circles, said that he changed his mind and was against gun registration because of the “sinister internal forces” that could surface in that scenario. He said he “used to think they needed to be registered, but if you register them they just come and find you and take your guns.”

“If we were only concerned about external forces, then we would be okay,” he said. “But there are some pretty sinister internal forces.”

He then asked the audience to think about a scenario in which countries around the world drop the dollar as their reserve currency.

“We have a national debt that is so high, and it’s being raised even higher,” he said. “Now, the only reason we can do that is because we are the reserve currency for the world. What if that changes?”

Carson mentioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to “remove America as our reserve currency” if America imposed economic sanctions.

“What if other people come along?” Carson asked, saying China and the U.N have mentioned doing the same. “We would become a third-world nation overnight. Occupy Wall Street would be a walk in the park. And all of a sudden, the things that would be going on in this country which would necessitate marital law… all this could happen very rapidly. We should be really concerned.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto mentioned previous comments of Carson’s in which he gave an urban/rural distinction on gun rights. Carson had suggested that he would not want a crazy person to have a chance to get a semiautomatic rifle in high-density urban areas, while not having a problem with someone living alone in the countryside with those guns.

“Do you think the Supreme Court was wrong when it found that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep arms in Washington, D.C., and Chicago?” Taranto asked.

“I truly believe in Second Amendment rights,” Carson said. “I would never advocate anything to interfere with Second Amendment rights; however, I do think we have to be intelligent.”

He said his point in saying that was to address situations–like in Detroit–where people with AK-47s are mowing people down.

“We need to engage in a discussion about, ‘Is there something we can do?'” Carson said before saying that “we have to keep in mind that law-abiding American citizens absolutely should have gun rights.”

The New York Meeting is a monthly event run by Mallory Factor and O’Brien Murray. Panelists included Taranto, Peggy Noonan, and Sirius XM radio host and Breitbart contributor David Webb.

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