Roy Moore, a Bible-thumping wildcard who was booted twice from his post as chief justice of the Alabama's Supreme Court, is running for Jeff Sessions's vacant Senate spot—and he wants you to know he loves guns.
At a campaign rally on the eve of Tuesday's runoff against Republican incumbent Luther Strange, Moore slammed his opponent for running negative ads against him suggesting "that I don't believe in the Second Amendment." To prove just how false the ads were, the front-runner whipped out a tiny, snub-nosed pistol from his pocket, aimed it at the heavens, and proclaimed to those at his rally: "I believe in the Second Amendment," according to USA Today. The crowd whooped and hollered in approval.
It's just the latest bizarre development in the race for Attorney General Jeff Sessions's vacated Senate seat. Sessions appointed Strange to the seat in February, tapping an establishment Republican who's since secured the backing of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other party leaders—including President Trump, the Washington Post reports.
Moore, on the other hand, is an anti-establishment Christian who believes the Constitution is secondary to God's law, according to the Post. As chief justice of the state's Supreme Court, he refused to remove a Ten Commandments monument from his courthouse and asserted that the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage was illegitimate. The offenses got him kicked off the bench two separate times, CNN reports.
Steve Bannon has thrown his support behind Moore, showing up at Monday's rally—flanked by Fox News's Sean Hannity and right-wing British politician Nigel Farage—to tell the candidate's supporters that "a vote for Judge Roy Moore is a vote for Donald J Trump." But Trump is explicitly endorsing Moore's opponent—or at least trying to. At a rally for Strange in Alabama on Friday, Trump seemed to flip-flop, telling a roomful of voters that he "might have made a mistake" in supporting Strange—and vowing that if Moore happens to win, "I'm going to be here campaigning like hell for him," according to the Post.
Whoever wins Tuesday is slated to face off against Democratic Senate nominee Doug Jones in a general election on December 12.
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