By Lee Williams
SAF Investigative Journalism Project
A 39-year-old South Florida man who is an ardent anti-gunner was sentenced last week to 15 months in federal prison and one year of probation for threatening U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, in a series of social media posts that targeted the Congresswoman for her strong Second Amendment support.
In 2021, Matthew Lee Comiskey sent five threatening tweets to Boebert that mentioned firearms and encouraged readers to do her harm. Comiskey originally faced five counts of making an interstate threat but pleaded guilty last year to one count.
His tweets show that Comiskey is violently anti-gun:
- “Someone needs to put Lauren down like a sick dog. She is a true waste of life! Someone exercise their second amendment right to her face! Since the CIA is a failure and FBI is incompetent at charging her for being a terrorist it’s time to do it ourselves! Pew pew Lauren,” Comiskey wrote in September 2021.
- “Don’t come to Florida us libs have big guns here and we stand (our) ground. Take you down like Trayvon,” Comiskey wrote a month later.
- “Don’t worry Lauren, someone is coming soon to show your face the 2nd amendment in practice with a copper jacket. Enjoy,” Comiskey wrote.
Boebert’s pro-gun credentials are well known.
Before the 36-year-old conservative was elected to Congress in 2020, she owned Shooter’s Grill, a Western-themed restaurant in her hometown of Rifle, Colorado, where staff openly carried firearms.
Boebert has earned A-ratings from Gun Owners of America, the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the National Rifle Association. In Congress, she is a member of the Freedom Caucus and the Second Amendment Caucus.
During his sentencing last week at the Paul G. Rogers federal courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, Comiskey told the court he let his “personal emotions get in the way of my common sense.”
His mother told the court that her son’s actions were “out of character.”
U.S. District Judge Robin L. Rosenberg rejected Comiskey’s requests for a shorter prison sentence or home confinement.
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