Liberal writer Matthew Yglesias brought up Senator Rand Paul’s support for the second amendment as a way to check tyrannical governments mere hours after the Kentucky Republican and others were shot at while practicing baseball.
A shooter opened fire on Republican lawmakers and staff Wednesday morning as they practiced for an annual charity baseball game. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and others were shot.
In response to the news, Yglesias tweeted out a June 2016 comment from Paul where he said that the purpose of the Second Amendment was “to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical.” Ygelsias is a co-founder of the liberal news site Vox.
The tweet Ygelsias referenced was part of Paul live tweeting of someone else’s speech. One of the Senators staffers confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation that the tweet wasn’t Paul’s words.
The shooter hit Scalise, congressional staffer Zack Barth, two Capitol Police officers, and lobbyist Matt Mika. The Capitol Police officers, who were part of Scalise’s security detail, returned fire.
Victim blaming. Disgusting. @instapundit @mattyglesias pic.twitter.com/mKNIj5PQb2
— JD Montgomery (@EconoMath) June 14, 2017
Yglesias did not return requests for comment to TheDCNF.
A self-proclaimed “Black Activist” tweeted out Paul’s old comment as well, indicating Yglesias wasn’t alone in his opinion.
This really didn’t age well. https://t.co/wZBMdadzrq
— Samuel Sinyangwe (@samswey) June 14, 2017
Paul was in the outfield when the gunman started firing at GOP lawmakers, hitting Scalise and several others. Paul said the shooter turned the baseball field into “a killing field.”
“I do believe without the Capitol Hill police, it would have been a massacre,” Paul said in a television interview after the shooting. “We had no defense, no defense at all. We are lucky Scalise was there. This was his security detail. Without them, it would have been a massacre. There was no stopping this guy. We were like sitting ducks. It was a wide open field, it’s a killing field.”
The suspected shooter died from his wounds after being taken to the hospital. Scalise is in stable condition, and Capitol Police officers who were shot defending lawmakers are expected to survive, according to NBC.
Vox falsely claimed that the U.S. had 11.6 times more mass shootings than actually occurred, according to an analysis previously by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
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