A conservative county supervisor in central Virginia is drawing criticism for a tweet about gunning down pro-marijuana demonstrators who stormed the Capitol Hill office of Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.).

Manuel Alvarez Jr., a Republican supervisor in rural Goochland County, saw a post on his Twitter feed about protesters trying to force their way into Harris’s office on Tuesday and tweeted his reply to his 636 followers.

“With one reload, I can take 34 of them. But my guess is one will be sufficient,” Alvarez wrote.

After logging back onto Twitter later Tuesday, Alvarez noticed the negative reaction to the post and deleted it.

The first time Majd AlGhatrif saw this historic mill town of colonial buildings at the confluence of the Patapsco and Tiber rivers, he thought of Syria.

The structures, built of gray stone, and the history they evoked, reminded him of the timelessness and architecture of his hometown, Sweida, in southern Syria. He soon bought a house here, in 2013, then opened Syriana Cafe & Gallery, in 2016, and came to view everything about Ellicott City’s people — their kindness and decency — as an antidote to the fear others were expressing over Syrian immigrants like him.

So when floods again ripped through here in May, killing a Maryland National Guardsman, closing businesses up and down its historic district and producing images of destruction recalling the floods of 2016, he vowed to do anything he could to help a community that had become his own.

The result of that vow came to fruition Saturday at Syriana, where he presented the city with a check for $10,000, which he had raised from Syrian Americans from all over the country who had seen the destruction and wanted to show their gratitude not just to Ellicott, but also to the United States for accepting them.