Guests: Lt. Col. Ralph Peters and Col. David Hunt

"Once again Fort Hood in Texas was the scene of horrible violence. 34-year old Army Specialist Ivan Lopez apparently went berserk Wednesday, shooting three people dead and wounding 16 others before committing suicide. Lopez was having emotional and mental problems; he leaves behind a wife and children. Some irresponsible pundits will blame this on guns, others on untreated mental illness, and others on a bad culture. But what this is really all about is freedom. There are more than 325-million of us in the USA; we have freedom of movement, we have the freedom to protect ourselves with firearms, and we have the freedom to act crazy without much accountability. Because of freedom, it is very difficult to get any mentally unstable person off the street. If you are a loon in China, you will be removed from society and the ACLU will not be able to help you. But here, in an open society, we tolerate all kinds of bizarre behavior, and a portion of any population is going to do violent things. There is nothing we can do to stop those people, nothing except give up our freedom. The mass killings at Fort Hood are unacceptable, and if I had a solution I would give it to you. But random violence will always be with us; evil human beings armed with freedom make that terrible scenario inevitable."

The Factor asked military analysts Col. David Hunt and Lt. Col. Ralph Peters whether most soldiers on military bases should carry their weapons. "That would be absolutely nuts," Peters declared. "If our soldiers carried their loaded weapons at all times, that assassin yesterday would not have had a .45 handgun, he would have had a loaded assault rifle. Do we really want a soldier to have a loaded M16 on his shoulder if he's having a marital spat? When you have an incident like this, you want trained responders who know what they're doing, you don't want every finance clerk firing his M16." Hunt concluded that not much can actually be done to deter rogue soldiers such as Ivan Lopez. "We could use much more help in mental health, and the only other possibility to discuss would be considering arming some leadership on the base. This is a random act of violence that is almost not preventable."

Guests: Dr. Daniel Bober and Dr. Keith Ablow

Psychiatrists Keith Ablow and Daniel Bober examined the Fort Hood carnage from a mental health perspective. "You can cure mental illness," Ablow declared, "so I wouldn't be defeatist about this. But we have disassembled our mental health care system. This shooter was in treatment, but we know in other cases of mass shootings the quality of care was lousy. To get a dangerous person hospitalized is a fight." Bober contended that mass shootings are no more commonplace than in previous eras. "If you use the FBI's definition of mass shootings, there has not been an increase in mass shootings over the last 40 years. So we really have to be careful about who we pin the blame on. While we could improve the mental health system, I don't know that there's much more we could have done in this situation." The Factor reiterated, "The freedom aspect basically eliminates society from forcibly taking people off the street."

Guest: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

The Factor welcomed Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who aggressively interrogated former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell at Wednesday's hearing on the Benghazi terror attacks. "Mr. Morell said he paid attention to what bureaucrats in Washington said," she said, "but not the eyewitnesses on the ground. Their conclusion was 180 degrees different from the bureaucrats who were reading accounts written by the Islamist press." Bachmann insisted that the Benghazi investigation is far from over. "The American people need the broad story of what happened, and we still don't have answers from former Secretary of State Clinton or from the president. The headline today is that Mike Morell took the fall for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama."

Guest: Martha MacCallum

As The Factor reported previously, the largest teachers union in Michigan was defending 39-year-old Neal Erickson, who was convicted of raping one of his male students and was demanding $10,000 in severance pay. FNC anchor Martha MacCallum entered the No Spin Zone with an update. "The union has withdrawn its grievance," she reported, "and they just want this to go away. But if the union had a shred of decency, they should have been the first to say this guy should not get severance." MacCallum also viewed a political TV ad that has gone viral, in which Iowa Republican Joni Ernst boasts that she "grew up castrating hogs" and therefore knows how to cut pork. After conducting extensive research, MacCallum cut to the quick and elaborated on the dreaded "C word." "Hogs can get aggressive," she explained, "and not every hog needs to have reproductive capability. It also apparently makes the meat better."

Guest: Maria Bartiromo

Author Michael Lewis' new book claims the stock market is "rigged" by super-fast computer mavens who manipulate trades and earn billions. The Factor asked Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo to react. "I don't think the stock market is rigged," she stated, "and it's fiery and abusive to say that and scare people out of the market. The best way to create wealth is through equities. There definitely are abuses around high frequency trading, but the truth is that these people don't know the first thing about stocks. They know about technology and speed, and the retail investor is not affected." The Factor was not comforted by Bartiromo's reassuring words: "I see these wild gyrations in the market, and now with this high-tech stuff you can push a button and sell 2-million shares in a millisecond. That frightens me."

Guest: Dennis Miller

Dennis Miller, despite appearing slightly squeamish after the castration conversation, opined on the all-electric Tesla car, which has received financial help from the federal government. "I don't want the government funding things," he said. "I want cleaner air, but the Tesla is not for me when you have to burn coal to get the electricity. I prefer that we drill." Miller also examined the apparent increase in violence at sporting events. "Throughout history, when you have bread and circuses there is always some human attrition attached to it. Man's inhumanity to man is going to become more obvious because in a crowd of 50,000 there are now 50,000 people who have the ability to photograph or tape it. If I had a small kid I wouldn't take him."

Thursday's tip comes from Bill Clinton, who joked with Jimmy Kimmel that "all the differences among people on Earth would seem small if we felt threatened by space invaders."

Dan Branist, Copley, OH: "It doesn't much matter what Mike Morell testifies. The Obama administration will continue to say there was conflicting evidence on Benghazi and that is what the compliant media will report."

Raul Otra, Singapore: "Bill, Eric Bolling was trying to tell you that markets should decide what technology gets advanced, not you or the government. Round to Bolling."

Robert Blann, Sydney, Australia: "Don't want to be rude, but Bolling did not make much sense. He must have an ulterior motive."