Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) clutched his pearls during a House Judiciary Committee hearing this week when House Democrats suggested Republicans care more about protecting gun rights for mass shooters than they do about keeping children alive.
Democrats are not wrong, of course. Every time there is a mass shooting in this country, Republicans offer “thoughts and prayers” and nothing else, thus allowing the gun violence crisis to continue. Despite a majority of Americans, including gun owners, supporting gun control legislation, Republicans still refuse to support it themselves.
In the wake of the Texas mass shooting in Uvalde in which 19 kids and two teachers were killed, Republicans have once again made it clear they won’t take action to prevent future massacres.
And that’s why Democrats rightfully can say that Republicans are siding with mass shooters.
Louie Gohmert threw a hissy fit over the suggestion and laughably claimed that Republicans “have hearts.”
“I don’t think that it’s very effective for the children to have people on the other side of the aisle come in and accuse Republicans of being complicit in murder and that we put our right to kill over others’ right to live, to infer by rhetorical supposed questions, who are you here for, we must be here for the gunman, is an outrage,” Gohmert said.
“How dare you. You think we don’t have hearts?” Gohmert continued with his fake outrage. “We care about people. We care about their lives, and lives have been so trivialized. We care deeply. How dare you. How dare you, you arrogant people, attributing murder to those of us that want to do things to stop it. Because we’ve seen what your ideas do, they create more murder.”
In that last line, Gohmert accused Democrats of creating murders even as he just finished protesting the suggestions that Republicans side with mass shooters, thus contradicting himself and tainting his own argument. It’s quite a bite of performative projection considering Republicans were the only ones who voted against an anti-lynching bill two months ago.
Let’s also not forget that Republicans refuse to support universal healthcare, preferring Americans to choose between bankruptcy or death instead. Republicans also want to execute women for having an abortion and are totally okay with them dying because they can’t get abortion care. Let’s also not forget about the kids Republicans are okay with starving at school and at home because they don’t support the free and reduced school lunch program and won’t lift a finger to lift families out of poverty.
Yes, Republicans are very much in support of death. Even Gohmert claimed in his remarks that Republicans have the “right to kill” even though such a right doesn’t exist in the Constitution. Republicans are willing to go out of their way to ban abortion and oppress the lives of women everywhere in their crusade to save fetuses that do not even meet the definition of personhood but are completely unwilling to save the lives of already born children who do meet that definition all because they care more about guns.
It’s absolutely fair to accuse Republicans of siding with mass shooters because that’s exactly what they do every time they refuse to do anything to prevent guns from legally falling into the wrong hands. They could pass these laws right now and still maintain Second Amendment rights. But they won’t because they don’t care about anyone’s life except their own.
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