South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy and Colorado Rep. Ken Buck are facing fire from some constituents, who've demanded an investigation, for a photo showing them holding an AR-15 inside their congressional offices.
Bucktweeted out the photograph of Gowdy and him holding the rifle, which was decorated with an American flag pattern.
"My friend Trey Gowdy stopped by the office – had to show him my AR-15," he wrote.
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Since, a spokesman for the D.C. attorney general's office, Robert Marus, said he's received several complaints.
"[I've] referred them and all relevant information to the Metropolitan Police Department for investigation," he said, the New York Daily News reported.
The firearm looks in the photo to be similar to the Bushmaster AR-15 used by Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, and is banned in Washington, D.C. But Congress has exempted itself from the city's gun-control laws, Capitol Police said, in the newspaper. So Gowdy and Buck, both former prosecutors, haven't broken any laws, authorities said.
"Members of Congress may maintain firearms within the confines of their office," Capitol Police spokeswoman Lt. Kimberly Schneider said, the New York Daily News reported.
Buck, meanwhile, said the firearm was a "beautiful, patriotic paperweight," and suggested the complaints were out of line.
"While safety protocols call for all guns to be treated as if they are loaded, this one isn't" he said, the newspaper reported. "A close inspection of the only public photo of the rifle will show that the bolt carrier assembly is not in the rifle; it is in fact in Colorado."
Buck said he also has the permission of Capitol Police to keep the rifle in his office in a locked case.