Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) castigated far right Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colorado) on Wednesday after Boebert took to Twitter to preemptively reject any legislative attempts at reducing gun violence that will emerge from Congress after Tuesday’s horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
As Democrats in Congress began discussing legislation to address the epidemic of mass shootings in the U.S., begging their colleagues to put partisan politics aside, Boebert dismissed the issue offhand. “You cannot legislate away evil,” she wrote, implying that the root of gun violence could never be addressed despite the fact that many other countries have largely been able to eliminate or greatly reduce gun violence through legislation.
Ocasio-Cortez responded by saying that Boebert should resign from Congress. “Why even be in Congress if you don’t believe in doing your job?” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “Just quit and let someone who actually gives a damn do it instead of acting like a useless piece of furniture when babies are shot with AR15s that we let teen boys impulse buy before they can legally have a beer.”
Boebert has staked her entire political career on her militant support of guns and the far right. She owns a restaurant named Shooters Grill in her home state of Colorado, where employees carry guns while serving customers, amid walls with mounted guns as decoration. She has rallied against gun legislation in the past — and, in March of 2021, her campaign sent out a pro-gun fundraising email just two hours after a gunman killed 10 people at a grocery store in Boulder.
The Boeberts have your six, @RepThomasMassie!
(No spare ammo for you, though) pic.twitter.com/EnDYuXaHDF
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) December 8, 2021
The Colorado lawmaker also has deep ties to right-wing, Neo-Nazi-affiliated militias that often show up armed to left-wing protests or launch extremist hate protests of their own. Many of these groups are united in their extremist views on gun ownership and they and their ideologies are responsible for hundreds of murders over the past decades.
Ocasio-Cortez has called for an end to the “idolatry of violence” perpetuated by supposedly “pro-life” conservatives, who parrot racist slogans like “all lives matter” while dismissing repeated politically-motivated gun violence, which overwhelmingly comes from extremist right wingers.
Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress posted exceedingly cynical and untrue statements about the shooting less than 24 hours after it happened, in attempts to exploit the massacre to fuel their culture war and further anti-trans and anti-immigrant legislation that is getting people killed.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted that he and his wife are “fervently lifting up in prayer” his constituents and the families of those who were killed in the shooting, thanking “heroic law enforcement” officers — despite early evidence showing that police failed to stop the gunman, exchanging gunfire with him before he entered the school where he shot and killed 21 people, including 19 children.
The New York progressive also dug into Cruz on Tuesday. “Aren’t you slated to headline a speaking gig for the NRA in three days — in Houston, no less?” she said. “You can do more than pray. Faith without works is dead.”
Join us in defending the truth before it’s too late
The future of independent journalism is uncertain, and the consequences of losing it are too grave to ignore. To ensure Truthout remains safe, strong, and free, we need to raise $27,000 in the next 24 hours. Every dollar raised goes directly toward the costs of producing news you can trust.
Please give what you can — because by supporting us with a tax-deductible donation, you’re not just preserving a source of news, you’re helping to safeguard what’s left of our democracy.