Anti-gun California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell posted a tweet Tuesday that appears to attempt linking pro-Second Amendment Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert with the man believed to have been responsible for the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park, Ill., and Boebert fired right back, according to Fox News.
Swalwell’s tweet stated, “Let’s start drawing straight lines,” and it featured images of Boebert with a semi-auto rifle, and the man arrested in connection with the shooting, identified as Robert Crimo III. The implication was clear, the Fox story suggested, that Swalwell suggested the Highland Park killer “drew his inspiration from Boebert.”
Let’s start drawing straight lines. pic.twitter.com/md1xKqoo6O
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) July 5, 2022
But Boebert was quick with a response, and it was a slam. She told Fox News Digital she understands “that Eric Swalwell isn’t a fan of our Constitutional rights and is desperate to distract from his repeated political failures, but the only straight line that needs to be drawn is from Eric Swalwell to Fang Fang to the Chinese Communist Party.”
The first-term congresswoman, who just won a primary election, added, “I will make sure that line gets drawn when we take back the House. Law-abiding gun owners won’t be smeared and disarmed every time a California failed presidential candidate rolls out of bed with a Chinese spy and tries to blame us for the conduct of others.”
Damaging to Swalwell’s argument was an email to Fox News Digital “that the network did not cover the shootings around America and wrote that if “you weren’t murdered or traumatized by a mass shooting” over the holiday weekend, “chances are you had second thoughts about going to a public event,” Fox reported. The email was sent by Swalwell’s communications director, Jessica Gail. Fox News Digital said Gail’s allegation was false.
Gail further claimed, the report said, that “We are a country of unrestricted weaponry where the most dangerous people have access to the most dangerous weapons. No elected leader in America fetishizes a dangerous person’s access to military-style weapons more than Rep. Boebert.”
This drama unfolded after the Washington Post criticized Boebert for tweeting about the mass shooting in Denmark over the weekend, in which she commented, “There was just a mass shooting in Denmark, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in Europe. It’s time to admit that gun laws DO NOT stop mass shootings!”
There was just a mass shooting in Denmark, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in Europe.
It’s time to admit that gun laws DO NOT stop mass shootings!
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) July 3, 2022
It is a sentiment shared by many in the gun rights movement, but it was too much for the WaPo. Political analyst Philip Bump wrote, “Boebert’s tweet should be read in the appropriate political context. It is, of course, less a tweet about preventive measures than about how America should approach gun legislation. She is starting from a position of posturing in defense of gun ownership, a motivating issue for many Republicans, and working backward to rationalize it.”
Bump then acknowledged, “She’s not entirely wrong, of course.”
Of course; Gun laws haven’t stopped mass shootings, or any other kind of violent crime, and gun rights activists will point to crime data as proof. Chicago, for example, has tough gun control laws, and an annual homicide body count larger than most states. Washington State has adopted some stringent gun control laws over the past eight years, only to see the number of murders, including those involving firearms, to go up.
Oregon gun control hasn’t stopped the alarming number of murders in Portland. Neither have strict Maryland gun laws prevented Baltimore from becoming a slaughterhouse. In June, the city racked up 41 murders, according to WMAR.
