Say what you want about Rep. Lauren Boebert, but she’s not exactly known for being meek and mild. The firebrand Colorado Republican is vehemently and outspokenly pro-gun.
Which is why anyone approaching her with a pin and flier about a Uvalde victim and asking for her support on gun control, then recording the interaction, is someone looking to make news. Everyone knows roughly how that’s going to go.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Boebert threw it in the trash, which is what anyone with any sense of reason would expect.
Now, the media is furious she dared “disrespect” the memory of Uvalde like that.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) was caught on tape throwing out a pamphlet and pin honoring Maite Rodriguez, a 10-year-old who was killed during the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last year.
Anti-gun violence activist Sarah Fishkind posted a video of the interaction on Twitter Tuesday.
“We just talked to Lauren Boebert about what the pin represents. She immediately threw away the pin and shook her head ‘no’ when I said we hope you can take action on gun violence prevention,” Fishkind wrote.
Boebert’s interaction was roundly criticized by anti-gun violence activists and family members of those killed in school shootings.
“Whether or not you agree with what we are fighting for or not, throwing away a pamphlet of a mother fighting to honor her child who was gunned down and murdered in her classroom is beyond fucking disgusting,” wrote Jazmin Cazares, who lost her 9-year-old sister Jackie Cazares in the Uvalde shooting.
Oh, give me a break. That pamphlet was always going to be trashed and everyone knows it. What they’re upset about is that Boebert didn’t play nice with them for the camera and made it very clear that she supports the Second Amendment.
If she were interested in playing with the optics, sure, she could have waited to get back to her office before throwing it away, but let’s be real here. Her constituents have elected her to Congress twice now. They know she’s vehemently pro-gun. It’s unlikely they’re going to give a damn.
Further, let’s not pretend this is just a pin in memory of a victim. That would be nice, but it’s not. This was expressly handed to Boebert with a comment about gun control, something she disagrees with.
Let me put it this way. Let’s say a pro-life group offered an abortion-supporting member of Congress a pin and asked for their help in restriction abortion, only to see that lawmaker toss the pin. What then? Would these same people get up in arms, even though the pro-life folks would tell you that they’re trying to save the lives of countless unborn children?
They’d laugh at the suggestion the representative should have done anything different and we all know it.
Rep. Lauren Boebert did nothing wrong. She’s not beholden to the anti-gun side to playact like she’s really on their side, especially if she believes gun control costs more lives than it’s claimed it would save. She’s not required to play nice while someone attempts to bully her into supporting legislation she doesn’t support.
