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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Hurting The Gun Rights Movement

Jennifer Sensiba
Marjorie Taylor Greene

Marjorie Taylor Greene (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

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The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, extending the same discrimination protections. Laws like these are always going to stir up disagreement and strife, as passionate and well-meaning people on both sides of the issue fight for what they think is right.

That’s a normal part of the legislative process. Unfortunately, two representatives, one a Democrat and one a Republican, engaged in a childish spat over the bill that did nothing to change the outcome, but tarnished both of their reputations.

One of these women is trying to make herself the face of the gun rights movement in Congress, and that’s not going to be good for the right to keep and bear arms in the long run.

The Latest Idiot Move

After hearing that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene opposed the Equality Act, Illinois Rep. Marie Newman, whose office is across the hall from Greene’s, put up a transgender flag “so she can look at it every time she opens the door.” The intent here was obviously to be antagonistic. In response, Greene put up a “there are two genders” sign on the wall, apparently to get back at Newman. So far, tit for tat, however childish and ineffective it all may have been.

As the feud progressed, Newman spoke out in favor of the bill during debate, and published her remarks in a video on Twitter. In a response, Greene mentioned Newman’s daughter:

I know, I know. Some of you will say that she’s just speaking the truth, but let’s be real about this. While neither Representative’s child is likely to end up in the same bathroom, locker room, or on the same sports team, dragging children into the argument doesn’t help either side of the argument.

Playing Checkers While Democrats Play Chess

We need varying opinions and open debate in society. People should be able to speak their minds, even if it’s bothersome for others. No matter what the snowflakes claim, words are not, in fact, violence. Those who claim that they are merely want to shut down opposing views and silence them.

But how we go about speaking out about issues matters, too. Winning a stupid internet pissing contest may seem cool, but it’s not good if winning that battle costs you the war.

Engaging in personal attacks and idiotic tiffs in the halls of Congress does nothing to advance Greene’s cause, and can only hurt it. Much of the public, many of them Republicans and independents, are disgusted when they see immature and ugly personal attacks like this. Instead of seeing a Christian standing up for what she believes, they see childishness and hatred. They see it this way not because of what was said, but how it was said.

To be fair, Marjorie Taylor Greene has become a designated punching bag for the left-wing media. While Joe Biden makes openly racist comments, he gets a pass. People like Greene have their every word parsed, analyzed, and presented in the worst possible light.

That’s the media world in which those who are right of center operate. It’s definitely not a fair game. That said, Greene knows this. She knows that things she says will be used against her, and yet she still exercises no care to make sure her conduct isn’t endangering the mission. She lets the enemy choose the field of battle and then walks right into their mines.

The problem for the gun rights movement is having someone like her, with whom many of us agree, become one of our spokespeople. Instead of having someone represent us who plays things smart, focuses on what’s important, and makes sure things get done, we have a modern day female Don Quixote tilting at the LGBT windmill.

The next time we tell someone that we support gun rights because it’s a human right, and that it protects human dignity from the ravages of tyranny and criminal attack, our opponents will bring up Rep. Greene. They’ll tell us that she spoke against the rights of a child, and that she’s an immature person who maybe can’t be trusted with a gun. They’ll tell us about her belief in conspiracy theories involving Q Anon, Jewish space lasers that start wildfires, 9/11 as an inside job, and school shootings that were staged.

Are all of these criticisms fair and in-context? No. Will a significant portion of the public eat them all up? Absolutely.

Greene is very unlikely to stop letting the Democrats provoke her into doing stupid things, so we need to distance ourselves from her for our own future success.

A Better Alternative

Instead of backing people with no capacity for strategic thinking, we should be pointing out how diverse the gun rights movement is. It’s more diverse than the Democratic party, in fact. Sure, we have many traditional social conservatives and devout right-leaning Christians, but we also have groups like the Latino Rifle Association, Black Guns Matter, Armed Equality, Pink Pistols, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and even the Socialist Rifle Association. There are many others all across the ideological spectrum.

With all of the new gun owners who armed themselves in the past year, many of them independents and even Democrats from blue states, we can’t afford to make the gun rights movement a right-wing fringe movement. We need to welcome everyone and unite behind our passion for protecting gun rights, even if we don’t agree on much else.

If we don’t do this, expect the Democrats to form their own coalition with these new gun owners, and expect to see “common sense gun reforms” that would, in reality, pave the road to eventual confiscation.

Is “dunking on the libs” worth risking that?

 

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