Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) was speaking with constituents about gun policy at a diner on Friday when he decided to place his own loaded handgun on a table in service to a point.
"I'm not going to be a Gabby Giffords," he told Charleston's Post and Courier, referring to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who survived being shot in the head while talking to constituents outside a grocery store. "I don't mind dying," Norman added, "but whoever shoots me better shoot well or I'm shooting back." Later, he said to CNN he "merely proved a point that guns themselves are not the issue;" criminality and mental illness are.
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