A gun store in Murphy, North Carolina, put up a billboard attacking Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
Cherokee Guns posted a photo of the billboard via Facebook on Sunday.
It was a replacement of the store’s previous billboard, which featured a beefy President Donald Trump with the words “No collusion. No obstruction. Just guns!!!”
In a phone interview with TPM, a Cherokee Guns sales manager who goes by “Butch” claimed that the new billboard is meant to be a “blow against socialism,” not “hatred toward anybody.”
Butch, who declined to give his last name, denied that a billboard smearing the congresswomen while simultaneously promoting a gun shop could be considered violent rhetoric, such as a Louisiana policeman’s Facebook post declaring that Ocasio-Cortez “needs a round.”
Butch told TPM that the difference between the billboard and the cop’s post is that the latter was a “direct threat of violence.”
Butch said that the next billboard would feature Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) because “he’s an admitted crackpot socialist.”
