“If babies had guns they wouldn’t be aborted,” reads a bumper sticker created by U.S. Rep. Steve Stockman, a Republican who represents southeast Texas’ 36th District.

Shock value is the Texas Congressman’s stock-in-trade, as in this remark made in February, when he refused to vote for the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act: “This is a truly bad bill. This is helping the liberals, this is horrible. Unbelievable. What really bothers—it’s called a women’s act, but then they have men dressed up as women, they count that. Change-gender, or whatever. How is that—how is that a woman?”