Tea Party Gov. Nikki Haley: Perpetrators of Domestic Violence Should Keep Their Guns Because Freedom, Victims Should Go to Church

Nikki Haley, the Tea Party governor of South Carolina isn’t worried about what she says; she knows that no matter how outlandish her remarks are the people of her state will reelect her because she stands between them and the evil federal government that is stripping away all of their freedoms. Freedoms like being able to beat their wives without worrying that some bleeding heart judge will allow their victim to stab or shoot them in self-defense and claim a stand your ground defense.

In a debate on Tuesday Haley replied to a question that should have been a no brainer, one that no matter what side of the gun control debate one is on the logical answer must be the same.

“Should the state make it easier for police to keep firearms out of the hands of convicted domestic violence offenders?” The moderator asked.

Easy one? Of course it should be easy — no rational person would say otherwise. Apparently Nikki Haley is not a rational person:

“You know I’ve always believed in the Second Amendment, and I believe in it because I’m a certified weapons permit holder myself. And I know the classes, and I know the time, and I know the education that you need in order to be able to carry. We want to make sure that we put it in the hands of responsible people, which is why we passed legislation that said that anyone that had been ordered by the courts to be declared with a mentally ill disease, that they could not carry.

But for everybody else, we want them to have the ability to protect their home, protect their children, protect their business.”

Governor Haley does not think that being a wife beater is a good reason to strip a “man” of his “God-given right” to amass and keep an arsenal with which to keep “the little woman” in line.

This is not out of line with what passes for rational thought in South Carolina, in 2012 Whitlee Jones stabbed and killed her live-in boyfriend Eric Lee after being beaten, dragged down the street by her hair and prevented from leaving their apartment by him. The judge agreed with her attorney that the state’s SYG law applied and granted her immunity from prosecution.

The prosecutor did not agree claiming in his appeal that Jones did not qualify for the SYG defense because its intent is to allow one to protect himself from outsiders not from other residents in their home.

Haley’s most telling remark could be a simple misstatement but given her attitude that only the mentally ill should be prohibited from carrying weapons it is more likely to have been a Freudian slip:

“We need to continue to increase penalties against domestic violence victims and make sure that we’re doing all we can to educate people on how they can have a better life.”