A Florida politician sparked controversy Wednesday after tweeting that President Joe Biden would “learn” why the Second Amendment was created if he sought to “take our guns” after the Texas school shooting.
“I have news for the embarrassment that claims to be our President,” state Rep. Randy Fine wrote on Twitter. “Try to take our guns and you’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place.”
The remark was met by a flood of criticism, with posters asserting that Fine, a Melbourne Beach Republican, had issued a threat.
Actress Rosanna Arquette entered Fine’s inferno of outraged Twitter replies.
“Are you threatening president Biden?” she asked. “Because it sure sounds like it.”
Congressman Jamal Bowman of New York also weighed in.
“Further evidence that the Republican Party has completely lost its way,” he wrote, arguing that Fine and the GOP were promoting “fascism.”
Thousands of posters tagged the FBI and Secret Service in their condemnations.
Fine later doubled down.
“The reaction exposes the lie of the left that they just want ‘common sense gun control.’” he tweeted later. “They want one thing and one thing only — gun confiscation and an end to the 2A — and the notion that Americans will exercise their right to fight them makes them go crazy. Boo hoo.”
Fine was surrounded by reporters in the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee Wednesday as the controversy spiraled.
He denied that he had threatened Biden but repeated his critique of the president’s handling of the Texas massacre thus far.
“He turned his speech into a speech on gun control,” Fine said outside an elevator. “It was hugely inappropriate.”
In his address on the shooting, Biden called for politicians to take a stronger position against gun manufacturers but did not offer any detailed proposals.
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