"The View" cohost Joy Behar said on Monday that people who were bringing their firearms to protest the various lockdowns in states across the country amid the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic are "terrorists."
The protests in some states have been the result of "non-essential" businesses forcing to close and the timeline to reopen has been extended. As a result of "stay at home” orders, over 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits.
"Well, you know, let me first say that we are lucky to be working from home, all of us. I feel for these people who are losing their jobs. I really do. But they have to understand that they can infect other people. You know to paraphrase Patrick Henry, 'give me liberty and give me death' is what they are basically proposing because a lot of people are going to die because of this behavior," Behar said about the protests. "It has already been shown that self-quarantining, whatever you want to call it, besides distancing and PPE’s, has been working. It works."
"Stay home. And can I just make one more point? These people are being egged on by right-wing media and people like Alex Jones, like Rush Limbaugh. Why are you bringing guns to a rally? You want to call yourself protesters leave your guns home. Those are terrorists that bring guns to rallies. I don’t trust that at all. Don’t listen to these people," she added.
Facebook announced on Monday they are working to remove events being organized by users for anti-lockdown protests because they consider it to be spreading "harmful misinformation."
Other grievances from protests in some states, like Michigan, say the lockdowns have gone too far in limiting what people can and can not buy. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's (D) orders restrict citizens from buying clothes, gardening seeds, lawn care, and construction items but allows the purchase of alcohol and weed.