On Wednesday’s “Morning Joe,” former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) downplayed any ties of gunmen that killed 12 at the offices of a French satirical magazines in Paris have to the religion of Islam.

According to Dean, we should stop attributing the “Muslim” label to them because they fall in line with a cult that is able to overcome France’s strict gun laws to carry out such an attack.

“You know, this is a chronic problem,” Dean said. “I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists. They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for whatever anybody else’s life. That’s not what the Koran says. You know, Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult, not an Islamist cult. I think it’s a cult. I think you got to deal with these people.”

“You know, the interesting thing here is we talked about guns the last time regarding the United States, regarding how guns get in the hands of the kind of people that kill the two police officers here two weeks ago — France has tremendous gun control laws, yet, these people are able to get Kalashnikovs,” he continued. “So, this is really complicated stuff. I think you have to treat these people basically as mass murders. But I do not think we should accord them any particular religious respects because I think whatever they are claiming, motivation clearly is a twisted cultage mind.”

(h/t Newsbusters)

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