September 13, 2019

Texas Republican Tells Beto O’Rourke, “My AR Is Ready for You”

Twitter has since removed the post.

Brian Cahn/ZUMA

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A Texas state representative is under fire after tweeting, “My AR is waiting for you” at Beto O’Rourke, shortly after the Democratic presidential candidate endorsed mandatory buybacks of assault-style weapons during the third Democratic debate Thursday night.

“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” O’Rourke declared to the audience in Houston, Texas, while describing how such weapons are designed for combat and should therefore not be in the hands of everyday gun owners. “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”

But as the remarks, which drew loud applause, reverberated on social media, Republican Briscoe Cain, who has served in the Texas House of Representatives since 2016, made his contempt for the proposal clear:

The post, widely interpreted as a threat against O’Rourke, was instantly slammed on social media. But that didn’t stop the Republican from attacking O’Rourke once more. “You’re a child Robert Francis,” he said later, retweeting O’Rourke.

Twitter has since removed the initial post.

O’Rourke first backed a mandatory buybacks program in the wake of last month’s massacre in his hometown of El Paso that killed 22 people. The proposal has since riled conservatives, including Meghan McCain, who warned earlier this month that there would be “a lot of violence” if Washington passed legislation aimed at confiscating weapons like the AR-15.

“I’m not living without guns!” McCain told her colleagues on The View. “It’s just that simple.”

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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