Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has again come under fire for attacking David Hogg, the Parkland school shooting survivor and gun control campaigner, who she said needed to be “more masculine”.
On Sunday, Ms Greene was scolded for calling on 21-year-old Mr Hogg to be “more masculine” and to “try hanging out with actual dear hunters”, after he said licenses should be required for gun purchases.
Ms Greene, who has long accused Mr Hogg of rubbishing the Second Amendment right to bare arms, hit back at the school shooting survivor with the pair exchanging a number of tweets back-and-forth.
The exchange led to Mr Hogg asking the Georgia Republican to explain how his “classmates’ rights including the second amendment were not infringed upon when they were killed in their classrooms.”
She wrote of her own experience: “When a student brought guns to my school to kill other students he was mad at, unlike you, my reaction was why is he the only one with guns and why is there no one with guns to defend us? Your reaction was joining a women’s anti-gun lobby funded by billionaire Bloomberg.”
The remarks were rebuked by Twitter users, many of whom asked to explain what “masculinity” had to do with gun reform.
“Marjorie, you’ve been stalking that man since before you were elected. Leave him alone,” wrote actor and producer Emerson Collins. “Also the idea that stalking Bambi’s mom with a high-powered rifle or huddled up with your buds in a blind is ‘more masculine’ is toaster in the bathtub level dumb.”
“Just think, the Library of Congress will now have this tweet saved for generations to come of a member of Congress harassing a private citizen that witnessed a mass shooter at his school,” wrote Russel Foster, a former Democrat candidate in Texas. “Hopefully, in the future, they will see this as the rancid hate spreading through the GOP.”
Following Ms Greene’s criticism on Sunday, Mr Hogg wrote back by asking why “masculinity [is] such a huge thing for conservatives?” and said: “I genuinely don’t understand. Projecting your insecurities on others with never make you feel better about yourself...I think it probably boils down to homophobia. ...And sexism/anti-femininity”.
He continued: “Unlike a certain congresswoman I’m comfortable enough in my own gender identity and sexuality that I don’t feel the need to attack others to make myself feel better. The immaturity shown by congresswoman Greene is unbelievable.”
Ms Greene has been criticised for her behaviour towards Mr Hogg, who she was seen on video last year calling a “coward” while following him around the US Capitol.
She also allegedly appeared in another video calling the campaigner “very trained, he’s like a dog, he’s completely trained”, in an interview with Georgia Gun Owners executive director, Patrick Parsons, in 2019, before she was elected to Congress. The video was deleted.
March For Our Lives, the campaign group founded by Mr Hogg following the 2018 shooting at the Stoneman Douglas High School, in which 17 were killed, condemned Ms Greene’s statements.
“We affirm the stance of March For Our Lives co-founder, David Hogg,” the group told The Independent on Monday. “Through a deadly combination of inaction and indifference, our country has failed to protect the constitutional right not to be shot.”
“We need more politicians in Washington to take action against the gun violence epidemic by making it more difficult to access guns and addressing the social conditions that lead to violence, and fewer politicians arguing on the internet with young people, whose leading cause of death in this country is firearms,” a spokesperson added.
A spokesperson for Ms Greene declined to comment.
