On Sunday, President Obama addressed the nation about the recent mass shooting of 14 people by Islamic terrorists in San Bernardino, Calif. The speech was full of holes, and dangerous.

One the one hand, he said the terrorists had embraced “a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West.” But then he spent almost half of his speech on a long lecture about how Americans should not discriminate against Muslims.

He claimed that Islamic extremists “account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world.” A fraction perhaps, but not quite vanishingly small. ISIS has greatly expanded while he has been president and now has control over territory in Iraq and Syria with an estimated population in the millions. They aren’t doing that with three or four Muslim misfits working out of a basement. And that conquest doesn’t even include ISIS’s presence in other countries.

Remember when Obama phased out President Bush’s “war on terror” phrase? Now he’s bringing back the word “terrorist” because it allows him to avoid using phrases like “radical Islam.” He cannot bring himself to use the words “Islam” or “Muslim” as part of a phrase with “extremist” or similar words.

Obama saw this terrorist incident as a two-fer — not only as an opportunity to defend Muslims but also as an opening to call for stricter gun control laws, as he predictably does every time there is a mass shooting. He said, “We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino.” Yet assault weapons have been banned in California since 2000; the state has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country. The federal law banning assault weapons was sunsetted in 2013, with members of Congress admitting it hadn’t worked. Clearly, gun control laws aren’t working there.

In his call for gun control, Obama further said those on the no-fly list should be prohibited from obtaining firearms. However, at least 72 people who work for the Department of Homeland Security are on that list. If they are good enough to pass federal background checks for jobs at such a protective federal agency, why are they on the no-fly list? It calls into question one or the other, and if it’s the list, then it is doubly misguided for these citizens to have their Second Amendment rights curtailed.

It gets worse. In 2002, Salon reported that the no-fly list was targeting “right-wing activists” and other selected groups including priests and nuns. It hasn’t stopped. Weekly Standard Senior Writer and Fox News Contributor Steve Hayes was put on the list.  Katie Pavlich reports at Townhall, “According to the technology website TechDirt.com, 40 percent of those on the FBI’s watch list — 280,000 people — are considered to have no affiliation with recognized terrorist groups.”

But perhaps most importantly of all, in about half of the mass shootings that have taken place in recent years, many in blue states with strict gun control laws, the shooters obtained their weapons illegally (including stealing them from their parents). Since perhaps half of active shooters obtain their firearms illegally, another restriction like this will not stop them. It will only serve to disarm regular Americans.

Whenever gun control laws are implemented, innocent people are prevented from purchasing firearms, and sadly, some of them go on to become victims of crimes. Most government and media organizations never bother to weigh the number of armed citizens who successfully defend themselves against criminal attacks.

Obama said, “We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us.” But at the same time, he has been gradually reducing American military forces.

Obama is high on rhetoric but low on action, and would rather focus on gun control than the real issue. The root cause of all this is what one of their own Muslims will even admit is a problem. Moderate Muslim Dr Zuhdi Jasser says Muslims need to own up to the fact they have a problem with extremism.

That is the message Obama should have conveyed in his speech, rather than playing word games and sending mixed messages meant to further a political agenda instead of getting at the root of the terrorist attack.