An image shared on Facebook purportedly shows a tweet by Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters saying, “There is no such thing as a responsible gun owner.”

Facebook/Screenshot

Verdict: False

There is no record of Waters sending such a tweet. The tweet was sent by a now-suspended parody account.

Fact Check:

The Facebook post shows what appears to be a screen grab of a tweet sent by Waters. The tweet reads: “Every single gun owner I have talked to has told me, ‘As soon as I walked out of that gun store, I felt a killer growing inside of me.’ When will we acknowledge there is no such thing as a responsible gun owner?”

Waters, however, never sent such a tweet. Check Your Fact searched Waters’ verified Twitter accounts — @MaxineWaters and @RepMaxineWaters — but found no instances of the remark. ProPublica’s archive of her deleted tweets likewise showed no such tweet. The comment does not appear on her website, or in the congressional record either.

Furthermore, the screen grabbed tweet shows it was sent by the account @MaxinePWaters, not one of Waters’ verified accounts. An archived screen grab of the account from 2018 shows that the bio section of the account described it as a “parody account.” The account has since been suspended for violating Twitter rules. (RELATED: Did The US Have Zero Mass Shootings While Donald Trump Was President?)

Waters has been a vocal proponent for gun policy reform, and co-sponsored the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, a bill that aimed to prohibit manufacturing, selling and possessing semiautomatic assault weapons, according to its description from the Congressional Research Service, though the bill did not pass the House. In a June 2016 sit-in with other Democratic representatives on the House floor to demand a vote on gun control legislation, Waters said, “I am prepared to stay here until hell freezes over,” USA Today reported.

This is not the first time a tweet about gun control has been incorrectly attributed to Waters. Check Your Fact in February debunked the baseless claim that Waters sent a tweet saying, “There is no reason for anyone to own a gun.”