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Marjorie Taylor Greene claims mass shootings ‘designed’ to make GOP support gun control

Controversial Georgia Republican has speculated that medications caused shootings

Eric Garcia
Washington DC
Thursday 07 July 2022 19:58 BST
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MTG suggests shootings are ‘designed’ for GOP ‘to go along with more gun control’

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene speculated that shootings in Philadelphia and Highland Park, Illinois were meant to increase Republican support for gun control legislation.

Ms Greene, who has often peddled conspiracy theories since before she was elected to Congress, made the remarks on her podcast on Wednesday after the shootings.

“It almost sounds like it’s designed to persuade Republicans to go along with gun control,” she said. Ms Greene said that there were no mass shooting during pride parades in the previous month.

“But as soon as we hit MAGA month, as soon as we hit the month we’re all celebrating, loving our country, we have shootings on July 4th”, she said, before saying she would be branded as promoting a right-wing conspiracy theory.

“But what’s the definition of a right-wing conspiracy theory? Well by the way, it’s just the news that’s six months early,” she said.

Robert Crimo, who is 21 years old, reportedly made a “voluntary statement confessing to his actions” of killing seven people at an Independence Day parade earlier this week. He appeared in court this week and was charged with seven charges of first-degree murder for his actions.

In addition, in Philadelphia, two police officers were shot during a fireworks display and both suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Earlier this week, Ms Greene admitted she shared a photoshopped image of Mr Crimo and blamed anti-depressant medication, specifically Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, known as SSRIs.

“When are we going to have an honest conversation about drug abuse, mental illness, and SSRI’s … and deadly side effects. Are we really going to keep pretending? Or covering for Big Pharma? Because I’m absolutely done with the political plays on this [bulls***]”, she said. Later, she admitted that the image was photoshopped, but used it to further her arguments.

“Supposedly this is photoshopped”, she tweeted. “More reasons to release his records. What’s wrong with him?”

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