While many Democrats are worried that the rising crime rate in most U.S. cities could hurt them at the ballot box this year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez appears to be more concerned that people are getting “hysterical” about the crime spike, and she certainly doesn’t want to see politicians do anything rash like, say, spending more money on policing.

“We are seeing these headlines about percentage increases,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a conversation with New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman over Zoom. “Now, I want to say that any amount of harm is unacceptable and too much, but I also want to make sure that this hysteria, you know, that this doesn’t drive a hysteria and that we look at these numbers in context so that we can make responsible decisions about what to allocate in that context.”

On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co we’re exploring the inconsistent and incoherent positions of AOC, who seems troubled over the idea of more policing as a response to violent crime but has also embraced the idea of creating new federal gun offense that will be policed by armed law enforcement agents.

As FOX News reports, earlier this month Ocasio-Cortez declared that we must look beyond law enforcement and prison cells for our answers to addressing crime.

“If we want to reduce violent crime, if we want to reduce the number of people in our jails, the answer is to stop building more of them,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “The answer is to make sure that we actually build more hospitals, we pay organizers, we get people mental health care and overall health care, employment, etc. It’s to support communities, not throw them away.”

Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have called on Congress to earmark $400,000 toward a program called “Stand Up To Violence,” which seeks to address gun violence through counseling and community outreach.

At the same time, however, the congresswoman’s own website continues to tout her support for “common sense gun reform.”

That is why she has consistently called for a federal ban on assault weapons, high capacity magazines, and bump stocks.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez also helped pass H.R. 8, a bi-partison bill in the House of Representatives that would establish new background check requirements for firearm transfers between private parties.

If AOC is worried about society “throwing people away” by putting them in prison, then why does she support creating a new felony offense punishable by up to ten years in a federal prison for the “crime” of possessing a 20-round magazine or a modern sporting rifle? Why is she okay with a one-year federal prison sentence for selling or loaning a gun to a neighbor or friend without putting them through a background check first?

Personally, I’m all in favor of using community-oriented approaches to reduce violent crime while still using law enforcement to focus on the most violent and prolific offenders in hard-hit neighborhoods. You don’t need new gun control laws to do that, however. You simply need the right strategy and the will to put it in place. Instead of getting behind that truly common sense approach, AOC has embraced the nonsensical position of advocating for less policing, less prison, and more gun control laws that criminalize the right to keep and bear arms.