Gay Man Arrested, Locked Up For Tweeting Threats At Pro-Gun Senators

The man's lawyer said the tweets were just "political discussion."
From: NewNowNext

 A gay Virginia man who tweeted he was going to shoot at least two U.S. senators “in the face” just days after the Orlando shooting is being held indefinitely by U.S. Capitol Police this week as an investigation into the credibility of the threats continues.

“I can’t wait to shoot you in the face one by one,” Kyler Schmitz, a local Uber driver, allegedly said in at least one of the tweets.

Schmitz’s attorney argued Monday that the tweets were simply “political discourse” and not actual violent threats against specific senators. The tweets could very well have been influenced by a larger campaign on Twitter last week, which aimed to shame pro-gun senators who failed to act on gun control just days after the brutal slaying.

U.S. Capitol Police claimed they were particularly concerned about threats against Missouri senator Roy Blunt because Schmitz was only blocks away from the U.S. Capitol at the time of his arrest.

Schmitz’s attorney said the tweets were taken out of context and part of a larger “political discussion.” He added that Schmitz does not own a gun, either.

In an interview with NBC 4, Schmitz’s fiancé, Paul Cianciolo (right), said the comments were nothing more than “anti-gun discourse.”

“It was just a Twitter profile of a character,” he said. “[It was] satire, it wasn’t him as a real person, it was just a character playing out like in a book. It was a creative outlet.”