George Santos wears assault rifle lapel on House floor

Disgraced Rep. George Santos was among several Republican lawmakers spotted sporting an assault rifle lapel pin on the House floor this week, a move that outraged several Democrats amid a recent spate of mass shootings. 

“George Santos was wearing an assault weapon lapel pin literally days after a string of mass shootings. Call it tone-deaf or stupid, but one things for certain: he’s not fit to serve in Congress,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) wrote in a scathing tweet on Tuesday.

Santos’ fellow freshman colleague Rep. Ana Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) also repped her support for the Second Amendment by wearing one of the pins, which appeared to be modeled after an AR-15 rifle. 

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I), who is the sponsor of legislation that would outlaw assault rifles, retweeted a photo on Wednesday of Luna and Santos with their pins and expressed his outrage over their politically-charged fashion accessories. 

“As gun violence survivors were at the Capitol to mark Gun Violence Survivors Week and help me reintroduce the #AssaultWeaponsBan, this is what my colleagues were doing. What is wrong with you?” Cicilline tweeted. 

The lawmaker responsible for distributing the pins is Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), a gun store owner who actually sells the very same pins at his shop. 

On Thursday, Clyde said that he hoped to distribute more pins to fellow members to “remind people of the Second Amendment of the Constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties.”

“I hear that this little pin I’ve been giving out on the House Floor has been triggering some of my Democrat colleagues,” Clyde said in a tweet Thursday. 

“If I missed you on the House floor, please stop by my office in Cannon, I have plenty more to give out,” he added.