North Carolina Senator Richard Burr was caught on a recording joking about gun owners shooting Hillary Clinton over the weekend, making him the latest member of team Trump to jest about her potential demise.
Burr, who is fighting a tough reelection battle against Democratic candidate Deborah Ross, walked into a gun shop in the state and said “nothing made me feel better” than seeing a magazine about rifles in the store "with a picture of Hillary Clinton on the front of it.”
The audio, first obtained by CNN, includes a quip about supporters putting a “bullseye” on Clinton.
“I was a little bit shocked at that—it didn’t have a bullseye on it,” Burr jokes to a crowd in Mooresville, North Carolina. “But on the bottom right (of the magazine), it had everybody for federal office in this particular state that they should vote for. So let me assure you, there’s an army of support out there right now for our candidates.”
Burr did apologize for the remarks after CNN reported their existence saying “The comment I made was inappropriate, and I apologize for it.”
The North Carolina GOP did not respond immediately to a phone call and an email from The Daily Beast. The contest for the presidency and the Senate are in a tight lock in the state, where Burr narrowly leads by a point, according to the current RealClearPolitics average. Meanwhile Clinton leads by a little over 3 points in what is considered a must-win state for Trump.
Burr’s comments are not entirely different from a similar set of remarks from Donald Trump, who seemed to imply in August that people who opposed Clinton’s Supreme Court justice choices, could kill her.
“By the way, if she gets to pick her judges,” Trump said at a rally. “Nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Trump has often threatened to jail Clinton and has suggested appointing a special prosecutor should he win the election. This has prompted a common refrain of “lock her up” at his rallies as of late, where some supporters have even brought photos of Clinton’s face with a bullseye superimposed over it.
Another person in Trump’s orbit, Al Baldasaro, was investigated by the Secret Service after saying an interview over the summer that “Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.”
And at a rally on Sunday, Wayne Allyn Root, who opened for Trump, fantasized about the deaths of her and top aide Huma Abedin.
“We all get our wish. The ending is like ‘Thelma and Louise,” Root said in Las Vegas, referencing the film in which the characters drive off of a cliff.