Texas Lawmaker Tweets To Beto O'Rourke That His AR-15 Is 'Ready' For Him

Briscoe Cain tweeted what sounds an awful lot like a threat at Beto O’Rourke after his remarks on gun control at the Democratic debate

Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke had some pretty strong words about gun control at last night’s third Democratic debate. A Texas state representative decided to go full psycho in response and tweeted what sounds an awful lot like a death threat at the aspiring nominee.

“If the high impact, high velocity round, when it hits your body, shreds everything inside of your body, because it was designed to do that, so that you would bleed to death on a battlefield and not be able to get up and kill one of our soldiers,” O’Rourke said. “When we see that being used against children, and in Odessa, I met the mother of a 15-year-old girl who was shot by an AR-15, and that mother watched her bleed to death over the course of an hour because so many other people were shot by that AR-15 in Odessa and Midland, there weren’t enough ambulances to get to them in time, hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

Pretty fiery stuff but also, pretty reasonable considering not only what our country has seen in recent months, but what his hometown of El Paso, Texas experienced a few weeks ago when a gunman opened fired in a Walmart store killing 22 people. But Texas state representative Briscoe Cain heard O’Rourke’s impassioned words and decided to send what pretty much amounts to a death threat on Twitter. It’s since been removed because it violated Twitter’s terms of service, but not before O’Rourke could grab the receipts and send it out for all to see:

Cain tweeted, “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis,” using O’Rourke’s full name. “This is a death threat, Representative. Clearly, you shouldn’t own an AR-15—and neither should anyone else,” O’Rourke tweeted along with his screenshot of Cain’s vile words. Then, Cain doubled down calling O’Rourke “a child” after seeing that he had screenshot his prior comment.

O’Rourke has endorsed a mandatory buyback plan for assault weapons and was defending that stance at the debate. The audience cheered loudly at his idea but naturally, gun nuts are not feeling it. Luckily, Twitter users were horrified by Cain’s threat and reported him. The O’Rourke campaign reported the remark to the FBI. Hours later, the tweet was removed.

At a post-debate watch party, O’Rourke said in no uncertain terms that he viewed Cain’s tweet as a threat.

“I think it’s a really irresponsible thing for him to do, especially somebody who is a public servant and in a position of public trust to be sending that kind of message to this country. We are a nation of laws, and if that ends up becoming the law of the United States of America, then we expect the people of this country to comply with it,” he said.