Delaware lawmaker suggests mask opponents kill themselves

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Home leaders in Delaware on Friday chastised a fellow Democrat who urged in a web-based dialogue that those that don’t help masks carrying amid an uptick in COVID-19 instances however do help gun rights ought to kill themselves with their weapons.

Home leaders gave no indication, nevertheless, that they wish to pursue formal disciplinary motion towards Rep. John Kowalko. Kowalko made the remark in a publish following the Texas faculty taking pictures however later deleted his Fb feedback and apologized.

Kowalko, a Newark Democrat who as soon as described himself as “your textbook liberal, progressive Dem,” made the offensive remark earlier this week in a web-based back-and-forth with a conservative commenter over whether or not folks ought to put on masks.

Kowalko, who has a historical past of constructing inflammatory statements, later posted the apology for “remarks that query the sincerity and intentions of these people who really feel that their private rights are being abrogated or threatened.”

Home Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, Majority Chief Valerie Longhurst and Majority Whip Larry Mitchell mentioned in a joint assertion launched Friday that Kowalko’s feedback have been “offensive and indefensible.”

“We perceive the circumstances surrounding his remarks have been tense — the continuing challenge of individuals arguing towards carrying masks to guard towards COVID, and questions on gun rights — however intimating violence and self-harm towards one other individual just isn’t conduct that must be tolerated,” the assertion learn.

“We’re grateful he deleted the feedback and apologized, however this conduct shouldn’t be normalized,” the assertion added. “Lastly, suicide is one thing we take very significantly and may by no means be inspired, even in a joking method.”

Kowalko’s on-line feedback have been directed at Chris Rowe, who resigned as chairman of the New Fortress County Republican Occasion in 2020 after utilizing a derogatory time period for homosexuals in a Fb publish.

In 2020, Kowalko drew hearth for a profane e mail concentrating on lawmakers and others who supported minimal wage laws that might permit employers to pay a decrease wage to new hires and to younger folks. At a neighborhood faculty board assembly in 2015, Kowalko referred to state schooling officers and to then-Gov. Jack Markell, the nation’s solely Jewish governor on the time, by what’s extensively thought of to be an anti-Semitic slur. Kowalko apologized in each these situations.

Kowalko has been a state consultant since 2006. Now 76, he introduced earlier this 12 months that he wouldn’t search re-election.