You are a governor of a big state. Someone just shot and killed more than a dozen people in the nation's capital. Question: Should you tour a gun factory the next day?
If you're Rick Perry, the clear answer is yes. As part of his job-poaching tour in Maryland, he took a look Wednesday around the Beretta USA factory in Accocek, Maryland, just a short hop from the site of the D.C. Navy Yard shooting. Sure, there were some in the liberal media who critiqued the visit as insensitive or tactless, but the governor had his reasons.
There were four of them, to be exact, which we have compiled below:
1. Some companies are really good at making guns Beretta recently threatened to leave Maryland if the state passed an assault weapons ban. In an anti-climactic twist, the ban passed, but Berretta is still there. "Beretta has been a great manufacturer in Maryland, and they feel not only underappreciated, they feel under attack," Perry told reporters in a news conference. Just not under strong enough attack to actually leave Maryland.
2. A Maryland gun factory is the only logical place to boast of Texas exceptionalism "If you want to live free, free from over-taxation and free from over-regulation and free from over-litigation, a place that's got a great skilled workforce, move to Texas," Perry told a group of rapt Marylanders. Texas doesn't need to be told it's great. It already knows. It's the other states that are in need of instruction.
3. Guns don't kill people. They create jobs. "As part of his longtime job creation and economic development efforts, the governor has been reaching out to firearm manufacturers across the country this year to tout the advantages of doing business in Texas," a Perry spokeswoman told NBC. Presumably, because guns are helpful at snuffing out the competition.
4. Re-scheduling gun factory tours is a total pain in the ass At the end of her jobs spiel, Perry's spokeswoman added, "This private meeting was planned long before this week's tragedy." Perry could have presumably delayed his visit until the next time he was in the D.C. area, but by then, he'll probably be bungling another presidential run.
