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David Leyonhjelm slammed for ‘semi-automatic assault cars’ tweet

SENATOR David Leyonhjelm has been slammed for a tweet appearing to make a joke out of the Melbourne shopping centre attack.

Frank ChungFrank Chung
@franks_chung
2 min read
January 20, 2017 - 7:08PM
David Leyonhjelm’s tweet as the tragedy unfolded in Melbourne.
David Leyonhjelm’s tweet as the tragedy unfolded in Melbourne.

LIBERAL Democrats Senator David Leyonhjelm has been slammed for a tweet appearing to make a joke out of the Melbourne shopping centre attack which saw scores mowed down by a man in a car.

“Probably one of those semi-automatic assault cars,” Mr Leyonhjelm tweeted as news broke on Friday afternoon of car running into pedestrians in Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall.

Mr Leyonhjelm is a libertarian and staunch opponent of gun control.

Users on Twitter immediately attacked the tweet as insensitive. “Delete your account, scumbag,” wrote Shane Bazzi. The Australian’s David Swan wrote: “You are the worst.”

“It’s not that you are a libertarian. It’s that you’re simply a bad person. That’s why I hate you,” tweeted economist Jason Murphy.

“@DavidLeyonhjelm thinks the Bourke St Mall deaths are comedic, what a complete tosser,” wrote Zac Davies. “Can’t understand how a politician can attempt to joke or point out irony with so many ppl injured. He is a fool,” wrote @beauyleigh.

Benjamin Northey attacked him as a “cretin”. “I think [what] you meant to say [was] ‘My thoughts are with the families of the victims’,” he tweeted.

Elli CK wrote: “This is sickening. Log off and delete your account. How can you represent anyone with an attitude like that?”

In response to one user who wrote “Die soon, f***face”, the Senator hit back. “I assume this little petal is attempting to say he disagrees with my point of view,” he wrote. “Funny way of putting it though.”

Replying to BuzzFeed’s Alice Workman, he also denied it was his reaction to “people being injured after a car veered into pedestrians”.

“Wrong — reacting to rogue car. They are building them with a mind of their own,” he tweeted.

Even after it was confirmed three people had died including a young child, Mr Leyonhjelm continued to goad his critics, tweeting an image of a Liberal Democrats “complaints form”.

Fellow senator, controversial One Nation representative Malcolm Roberts joined in on the fray, praising Mr Leyonhjelm’s tweet as “brilliant” and wished he had “thought of it first”. He later deleted the tweet and went on the blame people for taking it “out of context”.`

Mr Leyonhjelm told AAP the outrage “only emanates from those who are too stupid to get it”. “My comment referred to the ‘rogue’ car, as if the driver is irrelevant,” he told AAP. “It’s people who commit crimes, not inanimate objects. The same argument applies in the debate about firearms.”

frank.chung@news.com.au

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Originally published as David Leyonhjelm slammed for ‘semi-automatic assault cars’ tweet

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/work/melbourne-cbd-david-leyonhjelm-slammed-for-semiautomatic-assault-cars-tweet/news-story/390871e0e1cd9f2f7d77ef352cde8940