Newly elected Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert appeared to change her video call backdrop from her large gun collection to a shelf of books after the mass shooting in Boulder which killed 10 people on Monday.
Boebert, a Republican and vocal gun rights supporter, used unsurprisingly similar messages in both video appearances as she defended Second Amendment rights despite later removing her weapons from the background.
The congresswoman had used the gun backdrop while she spoke at a virtual meeting for the House Natural Resources Committee on February 18 – just a month after the deadly U.S. Capitol siege on January 6.
Lauren Boebert had used the gun backdrop while she spoke at a virtual meeting for the House Natural Resources Committee on February 18
Images of Boebert with the book backdrop came from her appearance on Newsmax show Greg Kelly Reports on Tuesday
President Joe Biden called for a ban on assault weapons in the wake of recent mass shootings
Police work on the scene outside a King Soopers grocery store where a shooting took place Monday in Boulder, Colorado
Multiple handguns and assault-style rifles were seen on shelves in the background as she debated a committee rule forbidding guns in the committee room that she claimed was infringing on her constitutional rights.
‘The Second Amendment is very much a part of the constitution of the United States, and so it doesn’t matter how you feel, how you classify it this is an enumerated right that American citizens have to keep and bear arms,’ she said.
‘As you have heard, other committees are not taking up similar rules. I also sit on the budget committee and there is not a rule banning firearms from the hearing or conference rooms. How do you plan to enforce this, Mr. Chair?’
She added: ‘Will there be metal detectors installed outside the committee hearing doors? What is the procedure for delaying a vote as members get screened? Who is going to pay for these new metal detectors and increased security?’
Images of Boebert with the book backdrop came from her appearance on Newsmax show Greg Kelly Reports on Tuesday.
‘I know that Colorado his hurting. Colorado certainly mourns the loss of the 10 lives,’ Boebert said.
‘I can tell you that gun laws just don’t work – it’s unfortunate. But we need good people to neutralize threats and defending themselves, and the people around them to protect them.’
Boebert went on to claim that pro-gun Americans can help save lives and why she chooses to carry weapons.
‘It’s very unfortunate that their first knee jerk reaction is to limit our ability to defend ourselves,’ she said.
‘There are bad people who do bad things, and we need a way to protect ourselves, because we don’t know when they’re going to act on the things that are rolling through their minds and consuming their thoughts, and so we need a way to protect ourselves.’
A man named Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa was named as a suspect after aa mass shooting in Boulder which killed 10 people on Monday
Tactical police units respond to the scene of a King Soopers grocery store after a shooting on Monday in Boulder, Colorado
Dozens of police responded to the afternoon shooting in which an officer was also killed
Healthcare workers walk out of a King Sooper’s Grocery store after a gunman opened fire on Monday in Boulder, Colorado
CNN’s Don Lemon reported on the backdrop change while interviewing New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
‘She said she moved the guns upstairs so Biden can’t get them,’ Lemon said.
Kristof ripped Boebert and other gun rights activists who use them as ‘tokens’ to ‘prove their credentials.’
‘That is such a far cry from the kind of gun culture where I grew up with where guns were for plinking, shooting squirrels, but they weren’t for trying to prove your authenticity as a conservative. I think it’s a really sad direction we’re going,’ he said.
Boebert’s campaign also sent out an email hours after the Boulder shooting with the subject line: ‘I told Beto ‘HELL NO’ to taking our guns. Now we need to tell Joe Biden,’ Mediate reported.
‘Who do they think they are? I will fight this new attack on our sacred rights with everything I have,’ the email reads, according to Mediate.
On Thursday, Boebert wrote in a tweet: ‘Biden just said clearly that he certainly is coming for our guns, it’s just a matter of time. The Second Amendment is clear on that issue, Joe. The time is never.’
A federal appeals court based in California decided on Wednesday that Americans have no right to open carry guns in public – ruling that states can restrict them without violating the Second Amendment.
The en banc U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a 7-4 decision that reviewed 700 years of legal history from the United States and England and determined laws have never given people ‘an unfettered, general right to openly carry arms in public for individual self-defense.’
The court argued that numerous laws throughout the centuries have upheld the government’s responsibility to protect citizens in public and have prohibited certain weapons in public.
