CNN's new contributor Erick Erickson claims to be toning down his incendiary rhetoric now that he's more in the spotlight. But on the radio last week, Erickson said he would "pull out [his] wife's shotgun" if a census worker came to try to jail him for not filling out his census form.
"This is crazy," Erickson said last week on WMAC's In the Morning with Erick Erickson of the census. "What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I'm not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They're not going on my property. They can't do that. They don't have the legal right, and yet they're trying."
Erickson would later write that his comment was "misconstrued."
"ACS Surveyors are getting belligerent and have showed up on people's doorsteps to harass them and threaten jail," he wrote on RedState.com. "I said if some ACS person showed up on my doorstep to try to arrest me for not wanting to tell the government how often I flush my toilet I'd get out my wife's shotgun and get them off my property. Naturally the left is out today saying I was on the air advocating killing census workers. So tune in today and see what else they'll misconstrue."
Last week, Erickson told CNN's Howie Kurtz that he regrets some of his past controversial statements and that he has "definitely had to grow up."
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