GOP Congressman Ronny Jackson provoked fury for daring the Biden administration to “come and get” his AR-15s hours after the release of a damning report into police failures during the Uvalde school mass shooting.
The former White House doctor-turned Maga lawmaker posted a clip to Twitter on Sunday night falsely claiming Democrats were pushing an “insane gun-grab”.
“On behalf of all the law-abiding gun owners in the state of Texas, I just want to say, come and get it,” he said.
Mr Jackson was soon trending on Twitter as hundreds of commenters pointed out how distasteful the post was coming hours after the Texas House committee released its report into the deadliest school shooting in the state’s history.
“You are pathetic,” wrote army veteran and host of the On Democracy podcast Fred Wellman.
“What makes this extra sick is today the families of Uvalde found out a kid bought 2 of those and with no training slaughtered 21 kids and teachers while 376 police cowered outside too afraid to face the hail of bullets from the guns you’re waving around like your tiny d***.”
Comedian and actor Christopher Titus wrote: “Didn’t 19 kids just die in your state? 19 cops, cowards like you, holding the same weapon you’re holding, did jack s***. Is this your message to the parents whose kids were slaughtered? A**hole.”
Shauna Wright, who tweets under the handle GoldenGateBlond, wrote: “Who needs to fix the Texas power grid when you’re supplying this much tiny d*** energy.”
David Frum, an author and staff writer at The Atlantic, pondered how a former senior military leader who was the personal physician for several presidents could have become so seemingly unhinged.
“Incredible that a man so deeply in the grip of fantasies of mass murder was allowed close to US presidents. Don’t the Air Force and White House do psychological screening?”
According to the report by a Texas House committee that investigated the incident, a staggering 376 law enforcement officers descended on Robb Elementary School to respond to what became the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
Among them were 149 US Border Patrol, 91 state police, 25 Uvalde police officers, 16 sheriff’s deputies and five Uvalde school police officers, the report found.
“There was an overall lackadaisical approach by law enforcement at the scene. For many, that was because they were given and relied upon inaccurate information. For others, they had enough information to know better,” the report stated.
