NEW YORK – Everytown for Gun Safety, and Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, Everytown’s grassroots networks, renewed its calls for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to resign today after the U.S. House of Representatives voted in a bipartisan manner to strip her of all committee posts, including her seat on the House Committee on Education and Labor. Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in voting to strip Rep. Greene of her committee positions.
“School shooting deniers and conspiracy theory peddlers do not belong on education committees or in Congress,” said Courtney Spriggs, volunteer leader with the Georgia chapter of Moms Demand Action. “Today’s vote was a good first step, and we applaud House Democratic Leadership for stepping up when Republican Leadership failed to – but make no mistake, Rep. Greene should resign.”
“A school shooting conspiracy theorist like Rep. Greene has no place on the House Education and Labor Committee, which is supposed to be a leading voice on keeping our schools safe,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Rep. Greene should listen to the message her colleagues are sending her and resign.”
“It’s unfathomable that House Republicans not only invited a conspiracy theorist into their caucus, but chose her as their representative on the Education Committee,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Today’s vote rights one of those wrongs, but it’s only the start – Rep. Greene must resign. And to the 199 Republicans who voted to keep this dangerous prevaricator in a position of power – shame on you.”
Media Matters for America reported on Facebook exchanges from 2018 which indicated that Rep. Greene agreed with conspiracy theories “that ‘none of the school shootings were real or done by the ones who were supposedly arrested for them,’ including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.” This news came only days after Media Matters uncovered Facebook exchanges from 2018 in which Rep. Greene agreed that the shooting in Parkland was a “false flag” event. In the past two weeks, reporting on Facebook exchanges from 2018 and 2019 indicated Rep. Greene’s support for executing prominent Democratic politicians, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Barack Obama, Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, and more. She also liked Facebook comments about executing FBI agents.In a video, brought to light by Mother Jones, she told a far right gun rights activist that, “The only way you get your freedoms back is it’s earned with the price of blood.”
Ahead of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, Rep. Greene used language that further incited the violence at the Capitol by referring to the day as Republicans’ “1776 moment.” A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center highlighted dangerous ties between Rep. Greene and several extremist organizations, such as “the Georgia Three Percent Security Force Intel Militia, Gun Owners of America and anti-LGBTQ hate groups Mass Resistance and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).” According to the report, Rep. Greene has a “cozy relationship… with the far-right anti-government militia movement” and a “long-standing friendship… [with] antigovernment militia leader Chris Hill,” the leader of the Georgia Three Percent Security Force.
According to Media Matters for America, Rep. Greene has “expressed support for QAnon, the violence-linked conspiracy theory that the FBI has labeled a potential domestic terror threat. She has also pushed conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks, the killing of Democratic staffer Seth Rich, and Pizzagate, among others.” Greene has also made derisive and misogynist comments regarding gun safety advocates with Moms Demand Action and in support of right-wing militias.
More than 1,500 people in Georgia die every year from gun violence. More information on gun violence in Georgia is available here, and more information on gun violence in the U.S. is available here.
