Lacking tact or sensitivity Congressman Steve King [photo], and his team launch attack on hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets against gun violence by mocking the Parkland survivors

In a move many have labeled tactless and insensitive, serially controversial US congressman Steve King [R-Iowa], responded to hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets against gun violence by mocking the Parkland survivors still mourning the deaths of their classmates.
The western Iowa Republican’s campaign team spent the day after the march insulting those involved with March for Our Lives, including personal attacks on the teenagers who lived through last month’s attack that killed 17 students and teachers in Florida.

Rep King personally attacked Parkland shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez

“This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp after removing all weapons from its citizens, hence their right to self defense.”
His Facebook page posted the message  alongside a picture of 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez – At Saturday’s rally the Parkland high school shooting survivor stood on the stage in complete silence, weeping. She marked the six minutes and 20 seconds that claimed the lives of 17 people at her school in Florida. In tribute, she wore on her olive-green jacket several sewn-on patches, including a Cuban flag.
That flag, representing González’s Cuban heritage, became the red meat for some conservatives online over the weekend.
Rep King waded into the ‘bash Gonzalez’ affray on Sunday afternoon. One particularly tasteless message appeared on the Facebook page for his campaign.

While the congressman’s office abandoned polite debate in favor of what it called “triggering lefties,” it joined a string of pro-gun voices that have attacked Gonzalez, Hogg and other student protesters they have stamped with the self-contradictory label of being liberal stooges for communism
Reacting to King’s intemperance, Brandon J. Wolf, a Pulse shooting survivor who now campaigns against gun violence posted: “When it was my community, where were you?
When it was Sandy Hook? Columbine? Were you on the sideline mocking those communities too?” Wolf asked of King.
King later denied he was bullying the 18-year-old. Gonzalez has been the victim of right-wing vitriol over speeches remembering her classmates and calling for stricter gun laws. King’s explanation of his own version of the ‘hate-speech’ is his claim that the social media attack was strictly focused on communism in Cuba, whose flag Gonzalez was wearing on her arm.
Still he goes on to the comment sections below the posts and clicked “like” on at least two posts comparing Gonzalez and fellow students David Hogg to communists.

David Hogg, like Gonzalez and their fellow classmates from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School helped lead hundreds of thousands in a march for gun control this weekend. King and other pro-gun lobbyists have labeled them communists and liberal stooges

An aide to Florida state representative Shawn Kelly lost his job shortly after the Valentine’s Day killing for suggesting the teens were crisis actors, and an NRA TV host was widely criticized over the weekend for telling survivors that “no one would know your names” if their classmates hadn’t been slaughtered.
The federal government’s failure to pass any meaningful gun laws, despite support from the President for ideas such as raising the minimum age to buy an assault rifle to 21, has also focused attention on the National Rifle Association’s donations to lawmakers.
King’s page responded to one criticism and said “The NRA ‘bought’ the congressman’s vote with a paltry sum of $11,500 over a two year period, eh? Riiiiight.”

Totally tasteless and inappropriate King’s page flaunted how it was “triggering liberals” by attacking the students protesting gun violence

“The congressman was adamantly pro-gun long before the NRA wrote any checks. And even if he wasn’t, you should know that $11,500 doesn’t buy anything in DC. But those are just silly facts that stand in the way of your conspiracy theories, huh? – Team King”
Transparency website Open Secrets reported that audits show the NRA spent more than $400 million in 2016, including $30 million to support President Trump and millions more to other candidates.

The face of defiance – Out with the old, in with the new. “This is not the end. This was just the beginning.” – Emma Gonzalez

“We’re going to be revving up for the election,” Emma Gonzalez, one of the survivors of the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., who helped launch Saturday’s March for Our Lives, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“This is not the end. This was just the beginning.”
The focus will now shift to the ballot box and getting young people of voting age registered to vote and motivating them to turn out to support candidates who will fight for gun control, and oppose those in the pocket of the National Rifle Association, Gonzalez said on CBS.
The students are pushing for an assault weapons ban and universal background checks. They consider President Trump’s Stop School Violence Act, which bolsters funding for school security, to be ineffectual and timid in addressing the issue.