Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chastised Rep. Lauren Boebert for “elevating anti LGBT+ hate” and blocking gun safety laws in the wake of the mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ bar in Colorado Springs that killed at least five people and injured 25 others.
“@laurenboebert you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote Sunday. “You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this. Look inward and change.”
Boebert, who recently won a seat Colorado’s Third Congressional District in a race against Democratic opponent Adam Frisch, expressed her outrage at the tragedy Sunday with a rallying call to end “lawless violence” “quickly.”
“The news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful,” Boebert wrote Sunday on Twitter. “This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers. This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.”
Shortly after the statement, Ocasio-Cortez and many others condemned Boebert’s hypocrisy in calling the shooting “absolutely awful” despite using anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in her campaign.
“Your record ‘is absolutely awful,’” wrote Mondaire Jones, a congressman for Rockland and Westchester. “You use hateful rhetoric towards the LGBTQ+ community and helped block even modest efforts to end gun violence. You’re also one of the reasons we put metal detectors outside the House floor.”
“Your first ad as a member of congress bragged about bringing guns onto the house floor. I walk through metal detectors to vote because of you,” congressman Jamaal Bowman added. “Your rhetoric and lack of legislative courage and humanity radicalized people to do the evil and unthinkable.”
Ocasio-Cortez also pointed out the correlation between hate and violence within recent shootings and attacks, urging the Republican party to “connect the dots.”
“After Trump elevated anti-immigrant & anti-Latino rhetoric, we had the deadliest anti-Latino shooting in modern history,” she wrote. “After anti-Asian hate w/COVID, Atlanta. Tree of life. Emanuel AME. Buffalo. And now after an anti-LGBT+ campaign, Colorado Springs. Connect the dots, @GOP.”
