Mike Davis used a profanity laced tweet to tell former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to “fuck off” after she shared condolences for a National Guard member killed in a shooting and called for action against gun violence. Giffords, who survived being shot in the head while meeting constituents in 2011, has become one of the country’s most visible advocates for gun safety. His outburst did not just punch down, it sneered at the idea that someone scarred by gunfire might want fewer people to live through what she did.
What makes it even uglier is how routine this is in MAGA world. Staff Sgt. Sarah Beckstrom was only on that D.C. street because trump flooded the capital with National Guard troops as part of a domestic crackdown that a federal judge has already ruled unlawful, saying he exceeded his authority by using soldiers for open ended “crime deterrence.” Instead of grappling with the fact that this lawless deployment helped put her in the line of fire, Davis tried to redirect blame onto Giffords, Senator Mark Kelly, and Democrats, accusing them of importing “terrorists” while a soldier lay dead in a city militarized for trump’s politics, not public safety.
Coming after Giffords is not just insensitive, it is obscene. This is a woman whose skull was shattered while doing basic democracy talking with voters in a grocery store parking lot. Mocking her plea for fewer shootings and defending an unlawful troop deployment that turned people like Sarah Beckstrom into expendable props is the tell that this movement is not about freedom or safety, it is about domination, cruelty, and keeping both guns and soldiers on American streets no matter who gets killed.
Just when you think Republicans can’t sink any lower, they never fail to disappoint.