AOC Tells Boebert, ‘You Don’t Get to Thoughts and Prayers Your Way Out of’ LGBTQ Nightclub Shooting

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out Rep. Lauren Boebert for her weak response to a Saturday night shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs that left at least five dead and 18 injured. Boebert — who is a gun enthusiast, former owner of gun-themed restaurant Shooters Grill and spreader of lies about LGBTQ “grooming” — took to Twitter to call the shooting “absolutely awful” while merely offering “prayers” to the victims and their families.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a response to the Republican congresswoman, writing, “You have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws.”

“You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this,” she added. “Look inward and change.”

.@laurenboebert you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws.

You don’t get to “thoughts and prayers” your way out of this. Look inward and change. https://t.co/mxt6wFMVEv — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 20, 2022

Not only is Boebert blindly pro-gun, she has also spread vicious, dangerous lies that LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. are “grooming” children. A report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Human Rights Campaign found that Boebert was the third most influential Twitter account in the U.S. that spread the harmful and false “groomer narrative.” Her GOP colleague, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, was ranked number one. Meanwhile, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have been rising in areas of the U.S. and internationally. Experts have been warning that increases in anti-LGBTQ hate speech online can be seen as calls to action for extremists and extremist groups.

Boebert campaigned on her love of guns and when she was first elected, she pledged in an ad that she would “carry my Glock to Congress.” Following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, as advocates called for stricter gun safety laws, Boebert posted on Twitter, saying, “You can’t legislate away evil.”

“Why even be in Congress if you don’t believe in doing your job?” Ocasio-Cortez responded to Boebert at the time. “Just quit and let someone who actually gives a damn do it instead of acting like a useless piece of furniture when babies are shot with AR-15s that we let teen boys impulse buy before they can legally have a beer.”