So this happened yesterday:
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said he opposes new gun laws and blamed “wokeness” and critical race theory for school shootings days after a gunman in Texas killed 21 people, almost all of whom were elementary school students.
“This is a society-wide problem, a society-wide sickness that is not going to be solved by some gun law, additional gun laws here in Washington, D.C.,” the Oshkosh Republican told Fox Business host Neil Cavuto.
Asked whether stiffer background checks could curb future school shootings, Johnson said people will always fall through the cracks. He added he believed some people shouldn’t have guns but questioned how that determination might be made.
“The solution lies in stronger families, more supportive communities, I would argue renewed faith,” he said. “We’ve lost that. We stopped teaching values in so many of our schools. Now we’re teaching wokeness. We’re indoctrinating our children with things like CRT, telling, you know, some children they’re not equal to others and they’re the cause of other people’s problems.”
Johnson has been rightly getting trashed for these remarks:
Democratic Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers called the senator's comments "breathtaking" on Friday according to the Wisconsin State Journal and pointed to a 2019 poll from Marquette University Law School that found 80 percent of Wisconsin residents support expanded background checks for gun sales.
"For him to say something like that, first of all it is in direct conflict with what the people of Wisconsin want, and frankly it makes no...sense," the governor said, according to the newspaper.
Responding to the interview, Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 tweeted: "No @SenRonJohnson, My daughter Jaime did not die because of wokeness or CRT. Your comments may be the dumbest, most pathetic yet trying to explain this...I am Jaime's dad and I will not stop until you are fired."
"Senile Senator Ron Johnson confuses talking points and blames Critical Race Theory for the Uvalde Massacre," John Anthony Castro, a Republican candidate who is running for president for 2024, wrote on Twitter.
Representative Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, tweeted: "And of course, there is the worst of all: DISNEY."
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has targeted Disney with legislation in recent months after the company opposed what critics dubbed as the "Don't Say Gay" bill.
Representative Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Wisconsin, called Johnson's remarks on Fox News "appalling."
The Democratic Senate candidates running in Wisconsin have also been hitting him on this:
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