Seconds later the video cuts to a smiling Katter, blowing smoke from
the barrel of a gun as the camera pans down to the two men apparently
lying dead on the ground.
Australian lawmaker prompts anger over shooting ad days after Orlando killings
Australian lawmaker Bob Katter
drew online complaints on Wednesday after posting a campaign video in
which he shoots dead political opponents just days after a gunman killed
49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub.
The
video, uploaded to his social media channels, features two men wearing
shirts for Australia's major political parties, the conservative Liberal
Party and centre-left Labor Party, putting up an "Australia for sale" placard.
Seconds
later the video cuts to a smiling Katter, blowing smoke from the barrel
of a gun as the camera pans down to the two men apparently lying dead
on the ground.
But the timing of the ad, just three days after gunman Omar Mateen shot dead 49 people in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, drew sharp rebukes on social media.
Katter,
whose minor Katter's Australia Party focuses on issues related to rural
Australia, denied that he was attempting to be deliberately
controversial with the video. Australia is set to hold national
elections on July 2.
"I'm not giving an
explanation. You can go and watch the advertisement because it's an
anti-selling off Australia advertisement," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
"It was just for humour value. But it was humour getting a message across."
That argument did not seem to gain much traction on Twitter, where users savaged Katter.
"Wouldn't be a real election without Katter doing something weird or borderline insane," Twitter user Samuel McAuliffe wrote.
"So Bob Katter decides that now would be a really good time to release a video showing him shooting people dead," tweeted @GordonlKnight.
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