NY Congresswoman Gets Death Threat Following D.C. Shooting: 'One Down, 216 To Go'

A New York State Congresswoman says she received a death threat yesterday afternoon, in the wake of the shooting of Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise during Congressional softball practice on Wednesday morning.

Representative Claudia Tenney, a Republican who represents the Utica area in the House of Representatives, showed the Daily News an email that she said was sent to her office. It reads:

One down, 216 to go...

Did you NOT expect this? When you take away ordinary peoples very lives in order to pay off the wealthiest among us, your own lives are forfeit. Certainly, your souls and morality were lost long before. Good riddance.

Tenney's office told the News she routinely receives death threats, but that one coming so soon after the shooting was "disturbing and disheartening." Tenney's spokesperson also remarked that "the level of discourse in politics today is truly unfortunate."

Last year on the campaign trail, then-candidate Trump suggested that "2nd Amendment people" could stop Hillary Clinton's policy goals, a veiled assassination threat that his campaign tried to suggest was actually a call to get out the vote.

Wednesday's shooter, James Hodgkinson, was a volunteer with the Bernie Sanders campaign (Sanders immediately condemned Hodgkinson and violence following this incident) and was a member of a number of anti-Trump Facebook groups. He was killed during a police shootout at the scene. The Daily Beast also reports that Hodgkinson abused both of his foster daughters, one of whom committed suicide.

Another member of New York's House delegation, Republican Representative Chris Collins, who represents the Buffalo and Rochester suburbs, has told reporters that his solution to deter future shootings is more guns. Collins said yesterday that he would be carrying a gun with him at all public appearances going forward, since he currently has a carry permit.

In an interview following the shooting, Collins told WKBW that "I will be carrying when I'm out and about" and that his gun "would be in my pocket from this day forward." However, the Democrat and Chronicle points out that a concealed carry permit in the state of New York doesn't carry over to Washington, D.C., which has strict gun laws that House Republicans have been fighting for years.