Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), an ardent guns rights supporter who has relentlessly fought with her Democratic colleagues, is now calling out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Capitol Police for preventing her from bringing her handgun onto the House floor. Her objection comes just six days after insurrectionists made their way into the same building in an attempt to harm her and her colleagues. Here’s five things you should know about the 34-year-old GOP congresswoman, who was just elected in November 2020:
1. She refused to turn her gun over to Capitol Police. In the wake of the January 6 riot, security was upped at the House of Representatives. While carrying her glock, Boebert merely stepped around metal detectors, setting them off. She refused to hand her purse over to police and caused a minor holdup in the security line. She tweeted afterward, “I am legally permitted to carry my firearm in Washington, D.C. and within the Capitol complex. Metal detectors outside of the House would not have stopped the violence we saw last week — it’s just another political stunt by Speaker Pelosi.”
Congressional members are allowed to carry guns into Capitol complex, but not onto the House and Senate floors. The issue of her being permitted to carry a firearm in DC at all is up in the air. She was reprimanded after tweeting a video showing her carrying her gun all over town, vowing to fight for 2nd Amendment rights and “defend myself in our nation’s capital.” The DC Police Chief said he was contacting her, as nonresidents are prohibited from carrying guns in DC unless they register with the police department.
2. She has sympathized with QAnon supporters. Boebert has been careful, though, to deny that she has any association with the conspiracy theorists who believe the Clintons and prominent Democrats are involved in a human trafficking and child sex ring, and that the deep state is trying to undermine President Donald Trump. I believe there are people working in the administration that at least appear to be actively undermining President Trump,” she told Fox31. “This is just a fake attack… QAnon is a lot of things to different people. I was very vague in what I said before. I’m not into conspiracies. I’m into freedom and the Constitution of the United States of America. I’m not a follower.”
3. She was slammed for live-tweeting Pelosi’s whereabouts during the insurrection. Throughout the January 6 siege, as lawmakers sheltered in place with gas masks, then evacuated to safety as violent insurgents roamed the halls, Boebert was telling them where the House Speaker was located. “We were specifically instructed by those protecting us not to tell anyone, including our family, where exactly we were, for reasons that remain obvious,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) tweeted in response to Boebert posting that Pelosi had been “removed from the chambers.
4. She has been arrested and summonsed four times for petty crimes. Boebert was issued a ticket in fall 2010, after a neighbor alleged Boebert was harassing her and her husband after they called the police because her dogs were loose and endangering their own pets. She was arrested twice in 2015, once for a verbal altercation with police at the Country Jam music festival. She had allegedly shouted at people being detained for suspicion of underage drinking to flee from police and was nabbed for “disorderly conduct.”
Boebert allegedly yelled at cops that her arrest was “unconstitutional’ and that she had “friends at Fox News and the arrest would be national news.” She was arrested again later that year for failing to show up in court for her hearing. And in 2016, she was in trouble with the law again. She was charged with “careless driving and operating an unsafe vehicle,” resulting in her rolling her truck i na ditch. She was arrested and spent 100 minutes in jail when she, again, failed to show in court.
Let me tell you why I WILL carry my Glock to Congress.
Government does NOT get to tell me or my constituents how we are allowed to keep our families safe.
I promise to always stand strong for our 2nd Amendment rights.https://t.co/E75tYpdN4B pic.twitter.com/qg7QGenrNo
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) January 4, 2021
5. She tweeted “Today is 1776” on the morning of the Capitol siege. Hours before insurgents took the Capitol, Boebert, who supported the pro-Trump rally, seemingly tweeted a message to the mob. She posed for photos with the rioters before going into the Capitol for the Biden vote, as well.
