Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) seemingly accused her Republican colleague Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) of lending guns to “domestic abusers” and “criminals” after he noted that universal background checks could prevent law-abiding citizens from using firearms to defend themselves.
Crenshaw shared a story on his Twitter on Sept. 3 about a Texas woman who used a handgun to protect herself from five men who attempted to rob her purse. In his post, he wrote: “Situations like this story are why we protect the 2nd Amendment,” while also noting that “with universal background checks, I wouldn’t be able to let my friends borrow my handgun when they travel alone like this. We would make felons out of people just for defending themselves.”
Ocasio-Cortez replied to Crenshaw’s Twitter post on Sept 4, questioning him why he would be “lending” guns to people who “can’t pass a basic background check,” while accusing the Texas congressman of loaning his guns to people who “have likely abused their spouse or have a violent criminal record.”
Crenshaw then hit back at Ocasio-Cortez’s argument, telling her that people “outside NYC” lend firearms to their friends for “self-defense and hunting purposes.”
“Just so I’m clear: you think my friends are domestic abusers/criminals? Seriously that’s your argument? That they can’t pass a background check? Wrong. People lend guns to friends, esp if they don’t own a gun, for self-defense and hunting purposes,” Crenshaw said.
“This is America outside NYC,” he added.
But the freshman congresswoman showed no signs of retreat, reiterating to Crenshaw that he shouldn’t “lend” a gun if “a background check would be a problem.” She also went on to defend her argument in a series of posts—that Crenshaw probably would not know whether his friends were abusive.
“We’re working on background checks. There are things we can do. But we already have very serious background checks. We have strong background checks. We can close up the gaps. We can do things that are very good and things that, frankly, gun owners want to have done,” Trump said.