In my hometown, a stone’s throw from my house, Donald Trump – on an aircraft carrier that actually helped destroy the tyranny of fascism – doubled down on his statement that all Muslims should be banned from entering the United States.

If you’ve read my blogs, you’ll see that I understand there’s an issue with Islam. The left doesn’t want to admit it, and the right wants to demonize it, which would be business as usual in our republic, but this proclamation is possibly the scariest thing I have ever heard. And, not surprisingly, the dumbest idea yet for combatting the very issues we face. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the various calls for gun control after any shooting, with all of the proclamations for additional laws completely disconnected from the attack in question.

This time I’d like to analyze the two together, using the San Bernadino attack that has spawned both:

As soon as the attacks occurred, demands came for closing the so-called “gun show loophole”, increasing background checks, and preventing people on the no-fly list from buying firearms. Which, all together, would have done nothing to prevent the San Bernardino attack.

If we had enacted ALL of those before San Bernardino, the attacks still would have occurred. California has some of the strictest gun control laws on the books in the United States, yet the guns were purchased legally, with a background check, outside of a gun show, and the shooters were not on the “no fly” list. None of those new calls would have prevented the tragedy. Which brings us to Donald Trump.

He proclaims he wants to ban all Muslims from entering in an effort to prevent terrorist attacks like San Bernardino, which seems to resonate, but what, actually, would that do? Like increased gun control, very little.

First of all, he clarified his remarks to say that American citizens would be exempt, and could return home. Guess what? Both the Boston Marathon Bomber and the killer in San Bernardino – the last two terrorist attacks on our soil – were US citizens. The ban he proposes would have done nothing to prevent the attacks – just like every call for more gun control.

Second, when asked on how it would be enforced, he stated that the customs official would ask the person attempting to enter. This is exactly what we on the anti-gun control debate stress: A criminal will not self confess to being a criminal. The only people who will obey the law are law-abiding citizens. Does Trump really think that an ISIS fanatic from Belgium, coming to the United States for mischief, is going to say, “Yes, I’m a Muslim. In fact, a devout one that has pledged fealty to the Islamic State. But I mean no harm.” How is the customs official supposed to disprove such a thing when the man simply says, “Muslim? Nope”? Ask the man for the twelve apostles? Ask him to prove he’s NOT a Muslim? Funny, just such a tactic is used by the Islamic State. When overrunning Mosul and other towns, they captured people and demanded they prove that they were Sunni and NOT Shia. When they didn’t know the religion well enough, they were beheaded.

This talk is more than just fear mongering. It plays right into ISIS’ hands of an “us versus them” doctrine. I’m the first to say that Islam has a problem, and – far from being immune – is a cause of the current fight, but the only solution will come from within that same religion. If you want Muslims to quit hating America and quit wanting to kill us, that involves them seeing the very beacon on the hill that we are. It depends on them learning what life can be like outside of a Sharia state, and that’s a long, long process. I’ve read the reports of “honor killings” in America, where the parents or siblings killed a female for being too “westernized”, and they sicken me. Some will say that that proves an incompatibility. I say the opposite – the female was assimilating. Yes, the death is horrific and the man who did it should have his nuts barbecued, but for every single report of an honor killing, there are literally thousands of other Muslims who are assimilating into our democratic society peacefully. And that is the method to defeat the virulent strain of barbaric Islam.

Make no mistake, Pakistan isn’t going to reform Islam. Neither is Saudi Arabia. But Baywatch might. If we allow the Muslims to watch it.