Over the last 20 years, the United States has experienced a number of mass shootings. 2021 has been no different. There have been high-profile massacres in both Atlanta, Georgia and Boulder, Colorado.
And the responses to the mass shootings have followed the usual script. Democrats use the incidents to call for common sense gun controls. And Republicans clutch their pearls and claim that if assault weapons are banned, Americans will have no way to defend themselves.
No member of the GOP clutches their pearls harder than Lindsay Graham. The South Carolina senator has been a frequent critic to even the smallest measures of gun control. He continued to push this message today with a video from a local gun range.
The video features the GOP lawmaker shooting an assault style rifle. He captioned the post, “In 1994, there was an Assault Weapons Ban – the evidence indicates that there was really no change at all in crime, because the crooks are going to get a gun!” Graham wrote in a tweet accompanying the video. Today at @PalmettoArmory I fired one of the weapons they are trying to ban. #2A.”
In 1994, there was an Assault Weapons Ban – the evidence indicates that there was really no change at all in crime, because the crooks are going to get a gun!
Today at @PalmettoArmory I fired one of the weapons they are trying to ban. #2A pic.twitter.com/XI985BZ96F
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 1, 2021
Graham talked about the weapon during an interview with Fox News. He was widely mocked after telling Chris Wallace, “I own an AR-15. If there’s a natural disaster in South Carolina where the cops can’t protect my neighborhood, my house will be the last one that the gang will come to because I can defend myself.”
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.