Freshman Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) published an interview with his pal Ted Nugent on his YouTube account this week, in which the congressman asked the controversial pro-gun rocker if he believed the victims of gun violence invited by President Barack Obama to the State of the Union were "useful idiots."
"Do you feel that the people that Obama has brought forward to hear his speech, do you feel like they're useful idiots or props?" Stockman said in the interview, which appears to have been recorded before Obama's State of the Union earlier this month, and has since been made private on the congressman's YouTube page.
Nugent, who attended the address as a guest of Stockman's, at first made an attempt to give a somewhat careful answer.
"It's a two-edged sword, because our hearts go out to the victims of crime, but it's never a lack of gun regulations," Nugent claimed, before going on to characterize the current push against gun violence as an "attack on the Second Amendment" designed not to prevent crime, but to lay the groundwork for a large-scale confiscation of guns.
But Nugent also later agreed with Stockman, saying that he was praying for the people that Obama had used as "props for his agenda."
Victims of gun violence and their families were present in large numbers at the State of the Union, primarily invited by Democratic lawmakers and the Obamas. While making a bold plea for action on a number of gun control measures introduced in Congress, Obama invoked some of the guests, declaring that wounded former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and the parents of slain Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton "deserve a vote."
Both Nugent and Stockman have been consistent in their assertions that these displays are just "props" for a more nefarious government agenda to disarm the general population. Stockman made a subtle reference to this last week, when he invited Capitol Hill staffers to a pro-gun event. "Grab free donuts and coffee before Obama grabs your gun!" the invitation read.
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