At least two Republican members of Congress were seen wearing lapel pins in the shape of an AR-15 rifle while conducting official business in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, when two mass shootings took place in the U.S.
Tweets showing Rep. George Santos (R-New York) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) wearing the pins went viral as many users pointed out the already high number of mass shootings that have occurred in the country since the start of the new year.
It’s likely that the two wore the pins all day long (in lieu of the U.S. flag pins they usually wear), as the Republican lawmakers were seen on House cameras, in footage that aired on C-SPAN, wearing the pins at different places in the Capitol — Santos, for instance, was seen wearing an AR-15 pin while giving a speech on the House floor, while Luna wore hers on camera while participating in a House Oversight Committee hearing.
Many lawmakers said that wearing a pin depicting a weapon that is frequently chosen by mass shooters was insensitive to people whose loved ones have been murdered in such shootings.
“To be promoting them on the floor of the House, is despicable and I think an insult to all of the victims of assault weapons,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York) said.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-California) said that the pins lacked “common decency.”
“Anna Paulina Luna wore an assault weapon pin at today’s Oversight hearing — less than 48 hours after her state experienced a mass shooting,” Gomez said on Twitter. “You can’t make this sh*t up.”
That same day, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) gave a speech on the House floor championing unregulated gun ownership, lamenting the fact that the U.S. doesn’t account for more than 46 percent of all civilian-owned guns in the world.
“We need to get our numbers up, boys and girls,” Boebert said.
Gun violence experts have presented evidence suggesting that the vast amount of guns in the U.S. corresponds to the country having a higher homicide rate than other wealthy nations on the globe.
In 2022, there were 648 mass shootings, an 86 percent increase from just five years prior. Since the start of 2023, there have been more than 50 mass shootings — including at least two on the day Santos and Luna wore their AR-15 pins. If current trends keep up, there will have been around 600 mass shootings this year by December 31.
Should the U.S. exceed 600 mass shootings in 2023, this would be the fourth year in a row that that many mass shootings took place within a single calendar year.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.