The way Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) sees it, if the man behind the El Paso mass shooting is eventually charged with a hate crime for targeting immigrants in his racially-motivated massacre, then it’s only a matter of time before religious leaders start getting locked up too.

During an interview on Monday with KETK, Gohmert was asked for what he thought about the increasing politicization of mass casualty events. Gohmert responded by talking about the differences between “sociopaths” and the mentally ill, but then he pivoted to talk about how “it bothered me” when Congress passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.

“There is no death penalty under federal law,” Gohmert said, “so all of this screaming and yelling we need to punish him for hate crimes, you know, that’s just going to be something used to lock up preachers someday.”

Gohmert continued to say “we should punish people for what they actually do, and not for something stupid that they say or may have crossed their mind.” He concluded that “if justice is really going to be done” in El Paso, “they need to use Texas law” so the shooter will get the death penalty instead of life in prison.

Watch above, via KETK.

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