[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 50 (Tuesday, March 24, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3756]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1115
          OMNIBUS LANDS BILL THREATENS SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis) for 3 minutes.
  Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  I rise to support the Hastings amendment to the omnibus lands bill. I 
want to give you two examples why and they couldn't be farther apart 
and still be in America.
  One is here in Washington, D.C. I had a friend who worked for the 
Federal Government who was getting threatening phone calls from a 
disgruntled former employee. She was an older woman who lived alone and 
worked for an agency here in the Federal Government. And so she got a 
concealed weapons permit to protect herself and was commuting in and 
out of D.C. to an adjacent State. Having that concealed weapon would 
have been illegal under the new judge's ruling, which is why the 
Hastings amendment to the omnibus lands bill needs to be adopted.
  Now here is my example from the West. It is springtime. We're just 
starting to fix fence after a long winter that broke down some of the 
fences. When you're sitting on the ground fixing a fence and you're 
sitting right next to a rattlesnake, it can be very disconcerting. So a 
number of us carry weapons while we're fixing fence. If you let a 
weapon be hidden under your coat, even accidentally, you need a 
concealed weapons permit. So some people get concealed weapons permits 
and carry a weapon while they're fixing fence. Well, if you happen to 
be one of those people who is also driving between Cody, Wyoming and 
Jackson, Wyoming, you're going to go through Yellowstone National Park. 
That is your commute. And it would be illegal to have that weapon under 
this recent judge's ruling.
  Mr. Speaker, both the Bush and the Obama administration have pushed 
forward with a rule to allow the carrying of concealed weapons on these 
lands subject to local State laws. By doing so, they bring these public 
lands in line with millions of acres of BLM and Forest Service lands 
where the application of local gun laws have guided our public land 
managers well. It took just one U.S. District Judge to throw that 
consistency out the window, but this Congress has the opportunity to 
renew it should the Democrat leadership in the House allow just one 
simple amendment to address the protection of our second amendment 
rights. Sadly, they are refusing to do so, placing the importance of a 
political win on the public lands omnibus bill above the constitutional 
rights of our citizenry to keep and bear arms.
  I urge the Rules Committee and the House Democrat leadership to 
reconsider their priorities and to allow us to protect second amendment 
rights when we consider the public lands bill tomorrow.

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