Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo was blasted on Monday for suggesting Republican senators and the NRA were to blame in the death of one of his officers in a case of domestic violence involving a firearm.
“I don’t want to hear about how much they support law enforcement,” Acevedo said, pointing to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.
“I don’t want to hear about how much they care about lives and the sanctity of lives yet, we all know in law enforcement that one of the biggest reasons that the Senate and Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and others are not getting into a room and having a conference committee with the House and getting the Violence Against Women’s Act (passed) is because the NRA doesn’t like the fact that we want to take firearms out of the hands of boyfriends that abuse their girlfriends,” Acevedo said. “And who killed our sergeant? A boyfriend abusing his girlfriend. So you’re either here for women and children and our daughters and our sisters and our aunts, or you’re here for the NRA.”
He continued: “So I don’t want to see their little smug faces talking about how much they care about law enforcement when I’m burying a sergeant because they don’t want to piss off the NRA.”
He then began to shout about how they need to make up their minds. “Whose side are you on? Gun manufacturers, the gun lobby, or the children that are getting gunned down in this country every single day.”
In a fiery press conference, Houston's police chief lashes out at the National Rifle Association and three top Republican lawmakers after the recent death of one of his officers pic.twitter.com/IOGql7CVxE
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 10, 2019
Conservatives were quick to push back.
“This is abhorrent,” Second Amendment advocate Dana Loesch responded. “My first experience with defensive gun use was a good guy with a gun protecting his family against such an abuser. To men like Acevedo: Stop treating us like weak creatures. Encourage women to empower themselves, get educated re firearms, and train.”
She continued: “The idea that Acevedo promotes in that clip, that firearm ownership is a man’s thing, so if you support it you’re standing against women, is so disgustingly and moronically sexist, it’s logical vomit. Domestic violence is literally a classification of prohibited possession with NCIC, Acevedo lies that it isn’t. That classification is why criminals like the abuser in my situation referenced get guns on the black market.”
This is abhorrent. My first experience with defensive gun use was a good guy with a gun protecting his family against such an abuser. To men like Acevedo: Stop treating us like weak creatures. Encourage women to empower themselves, get educated re firearms, and train. https://t.co/nluIVmCLDs
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 10, 2019
The abuser in my experience would have preferred his target, one of my family members, to have been unprotected by a gun. So whose side are YOU on, Acevedo?
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 10, 2019
The idea that Acevedo promotes in that clip, that firearm ownership is a man’s thing, so if you support it you’re standing against women, is so disgustingly and moronically sexist, it’s logical vomit.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 10, 2019
Domestic violence is literally a classification of prohibited possession with NCIC, Acevedo lies that it isn't. That classification is why criminals like the abuser in my situation referenced get guns on the black market.
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) December 10, 2019
Over at her website, she goes into much greater detail about why Acevedo is wrong, including some noteworthy pieces of information about his own history, which include a sexual harassment lawsuit, several instances of disobedience on the job, and “frequently grandstand[ing] for liberal causes.”
Loesch also relays the time he tried to bully her “with the threat of lawfare” because she challenged some of his claims and then tried to have him on her radio show to discuss them.
As for his criticisms about the Violence Against Women's Act, The Daily Wire flagged a response from Amy Swearer, a senior legal policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, who called his rant "absurd."
Losing an officer is heartbreaking, but this is absurd. VAWA re-authorization changes nothing about this scenario. Frankly, it appears the guy already had a DV misdemeanor from 2015 and would have been prohibited from possessing guns under existing law. https://t.co/FtTG0l0Bzb
— Amy Swearer (@AmySwearer) December 9, 2019
Moreover, there are very real constitutional problems with the newest version of VAWA, as @TomJipping explained recently:https://t.co/zrULY2EVaI
— Amy Swearer (@AmySwearer) December 9, 2019
While we're here, the Office of Violence Against Women is still operational: https://t.co/KVjtKI4ms1
— Amy Swearer (@AmySwearer) December 9, 2019
Its twitter account is literally still tweeting: @OVWJustice
The funding for its programs this year was secured through appropriations bills, not the act reauthorization.
Finally, stop pretending like having problems with VAWA specifics is the same as cheering on domestic violence or being unconcerned with disarming dangerous individuals. It's deeply insulting, and alienates people who are otherwise on the same page about stopping DV offenders.
— Amy Swearer (@AmySwearer) December 9, 2019