Ben Carson is brilliant, charismatic, and a gifted speaker who seems to be aiming to be the Republican Party’s 2016 candidate for President.

In general terms, Carson has said many of the right things to many of the right people, but he upset gun owners when he seemingly came out in favor of gun control in a 2013 interview with Glen Beck.

Our friend Jazz Shaw notes at Hot Air that Carson just held a conference call with supporters, where Carson attempted to reassure supporters that he wasn’t soft on gun rights.

“There seemed to be group of people—I don’t know exactly who they are—who seize upon one part of something that I said,” Carson said on the call, which Bloomberg Politics was allowed to dial into. “Sometimes people just hear one little thing and they don’t hear anything else.”

Carson said that he could have been more precise in his answer to Beck.

“Perhaps I didn’t convey it appropriately,” he said. “I wanted to convey that, you know, I’ve lived in urban areas. I’ve worked in urban areas. I’ve seen a lot of carnage, and I’d prefer a situation where the kinds of weapons that create that kind of carnage don’t fall to the hands of criminal elements or insane people. But that is secondary to the desire to always defend the Second Amendment.”

Carson said that “under no circumstances” would he “allow a bureaucrat to remove any law-abiding citizen’s rights for any kind of weapon that they want to protect themselves.”

Jazz further notes:

Well, if that’s where he’s putting his stake in the ground he will at least be on the record on the correct side of the issue. Later in the call, while taking questions, he also came out against reinstating the so called “assault weapons” ban and is absolutely not on board with any sort of handgun ban. I’m still not entirely sure where he stands on the whole federal background check / gun registry thing because the few comments we’ve found on record are a bit ambiguous sounding.

At this moment, it makes little sense to get too worked up over Carson’s views on firearms. We’ve only just had the 2014 mid-term elections earlier this month, and there are a number of 2016 contenders who have more experience, more support, and more resources in a crowded field of candidates.

I doubt we’ll see a neophyte like Carson mount a serous challenge for the Presidency.

If he does surprise us and turns out to be a serious contender, then we have plenty of time quiz him about this specific positions.