Rep. Greene Shows How Gun Extremism Is Deeply Intertwined With Rightwing Extremism
Everytown Report Details How Gun Lobby Enshrines Firearms As Primary Tool of Far Right
Today, Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, released the following statements after new videos showed Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) implying that people should shoot someone who comes to their door as a part of a vaccination campaign. She also used the moment to spread conspiracy theories about Dr. Anthony Fauci and the origin of COVID-19.
Video shows that after Greene baselessly suggested that President Joe Biden’s “police state friends” were planning to “knock on your door, because I hear Alabama might be one of the most unvaccinated states,”she continued, saying “What they don’t know is in the South, we all love our Second Amendment rights, and we’re not real big on strangers showing up on our front door, are we? They might not like the welcome they get.”
“Congresswoman Greene continues to recklessly encourage gun violence and undermine her own constituents’ health and safety,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Like a pack of cigarettes, she should come with a warning in big font right on her forehead: This Congresswoman is a Danger to Public Health.”
“If she hasn’t already, Congresswoman Greene is going to get someone killed through her incitements of gun violence and vaccine misinformation campaign,” said Tracy Glowacki, a volunteer with the Georgia chapter of Moms Demand Action and one of Congresswoman Greene’s constituents. “Georgians deserve better than this clear and present danger to public health and safety.”
Rep. Greene has a deep history of rightwing extremism. Earlier this year, 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 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 other Facebook exchanges from 2018 in which Rep. Greene agreed that the shooting in Parkland was a “false flag” event. 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 1,600 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.
