Democratic presidential candidate and former Rep.Beto O’Rourke‘s campaign has reported what he called a “death threat” to the FBI after a Republican lawmaker in Texas tweeted at him, “My AR is ready for you.”
That inflammatory remark was from state Rep. Briscoe Cain, who has represented a district outside Houston since 2017 and is reportedly one of the most socially conservative members of the Texas legislature.
Cain, 34, had responded to a tweet from O’Rourke echoing what O’Rourke said in Thursday night’s Democratic debate, when he told moderator David Muir, “If it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield …. hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-4.”
O’Rourke responded on his own Twitter account, calling Cain’s tweet a “death threat.”
“Clearly, you shouldn’t own an AR-15—and neither should anyone else,” hewrote.
State Rep. Mary González, a Democrat, alsoresponded to Cain, “The language you are using and the way you are using it is dangerous. We need leaders who want to change our culture of violence.”
An O’Rourke spokeswoman confirms the campaign reported Cain’s tweet to the FBI but declined to comment further or answer questions about which FBI office it was reported to or if they officially alleged the tweet was an illegal threat.
Messages left with Cain were not immediately returned on Friday.
Scott Eisen/Getty; Briscoe Cain/Facebook
As part of his campaign, O’Rourke has proposed a mandatory buyback program for assault weapons nationwide — which criticshave called confiscationthat betrays the Second Amendment.
Asked to explain his thinking at Thursday’s debate, O’Rourke spoke about the havoc such guns can wreak, as in West Texas last month where authorities say a gunmanused an assault weapon to kill seven people.
“If it’s a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield, if the high-impact, high-velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body because it was designed to do that, so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers. … We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore,” O’Rourke said.
Responding to O’Rourke’s tweet that Cain had threatened him, Cainwrote back, “You’re a child Robert Francis.”
His official Facebook page soon began promoting new merchandise: a T-shirt with the phrase “Come and Take It.”
“The unofficial motto of Texas has long been, ‘Come And Take It,’ “Cainwrote. “If you don’t understand that Robert Francis, you’ve spent too much time in DC.”
source: people.com
