[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 110 (Friday, July 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H4569-H4571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           TRAGEDY IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Loudermilk). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for the remainder of the hour as the designee 
of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, might I ask how much time is remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 32 minutes remaining.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much my friend, Mr. Hice, 
who preceded me.
  It is a very sad day around the country. So much in the way of 
sympathy and prayers for the victims' families in Dallas are greatly 
appreciated.
  As someone who grew up looking forward to visits to the big city of 
Dallas, it is deeply troubling to see what has happened there. The 
Dallas police chief said that the suspect said he wanted to kill White 
people, especially White police officers.
  I was listening in the cloakroom to a press conference going on now 
with some of our African American Members of Congress defending Black 
Lives Matter and discussing the unfairness in America for African 
Americans in this country.
  I don't know the races of the officers that were shot. Apparently, 
the suspect said he wanted to shoot and kill White officers, but I know 
there are a lot of officers in Dallas of a lot of different races.
  I had the opportunity, if you want to call it an opportunity, of 
trying a murder case for 10 weeks in Dallas. I worked with some 
incredible Dallas police officers. Because of my background, I continue 
to have great respect for law enforcement officers.
  There was something that we had seen since the protest days of the 
sixties and seventies: calling police officers pigs and calling them 
all kinds of names. People--terrorists from those days that have now 
grown up and even teaching college--wanted to kill pigs, wanted to kill 
police officers back then. Back then it wasn't a race issue; it was 
just killing what they called pigs.
  Having served 4 years in the Army after Vietnam, we weren't ever in 
combat in my 4 years, but we knew what it was to be spit at, to be 
ridiculed, and at times to be told not to wear your uniform off post 
because people hate you so much. So I have some empathy for what 
officers have gone through.
  The evil and the hatred that brought about 9/11, killing thousands of 
precious lives, taking so many innocent lives here, had a result that I 
didn't expect: it brought America together. September 12, there on our 
town square in Tyler, Texas, people of all walks, age, race, gender--it 
didn't matter--came together. We sang together, we prayed together, and 
even all held hands together.

                              {time}  1315

  As I have said before, the thing I loved about that day was there was 
no--there were no hyphenated Americans on September 12 of 2001. We were 
Americans, without regard to race, creed, color, national origin, 
gender, age. None of that mattered. We were Americans. We had been 
attacked, and we were wanting to stand together.
  In all our sympathy for those who died on 9/11, the day after, it 
felt good to be together. For about 3 months our churches were filled 
and people were asking God to bless America again, and it felt good to 
be together as Americans.
  Nobody from organizations like Freedom from Religion dared show their 
face that day because people across America were begging God for His 
protection, for His blessings, as He has through most of our Nation's 
history.
  There is an article that has already come out today from the 
Federalist publication. It says:
  ``Five Takeaways From the Dallas Police Chief's Press Conference. 
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas Police Chief David Brown held a 
press conference Friday morning in the wake of the sniper shooting 
during a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas that killed at 
least five officers and injured seven more and two civilians.''
  The five takeaways, they say, are, number 1: ``Police Killed a 
Suspect With a Robot Carrying a Bomb.''
  Number 2: ``Gunman Said he Wanted to `Kill White People, White 
Officers.' ''
  Number 3: ``Brown and Rawlings Were Unclear About Number of Suspect/s 
and their Descriptions.''
  Number 4: ``Brown said Police Don't Feel Support Most Days, but Need 
It Now.''
  Number 5: ``Brown and Rawlings Asked for Prayer.''
  I appreciate my fellow Members of Congress feeling the need to have a 
press conference today and, again, to support the movement of Black 
Lives Matter and the injustices that have happened at the hands of 
police officers.
  As I have said many times during my adult life, including especially 
during my days as a District Judge handling felony cases where humans 
are involved, there will be mistakes and wrongdoing. And no matter what 
profession, there will be people who do wrong.
  But I have always taken solace in the fact--what I believe is the 
fact--that amongst law enforcement, those who would do wrong or who may 
be prejudiced in their motivation, the numbers are so much fewer 
percentagewise than in the general population.
  That is why over the last 7\1/2\ years it has grieved me greatly to 
see our President rebuff the opportunity to bring us together as a 
nation anytime an incident involved a police officer, his knee-jerk 
reactions repeatedly, whether it was saying that the police acted 
stupidly or jumping onto the bandwagon against police, when it turned 
out the police were in the right.
  There have been instances where they were not, and there are some on 
video where it clearly appears they did terribly wrong and reacted 
terribly wrong. And when that happens, perpetrators, wrongdoers are to 
be punished without regard to race, creed, color, gender, national 
origin. That doesn't matter.
  It seems, as long as we have groups like Black Lives Matter, who will 
just become unnerved and inflamed when a Democratic candidate for 
President says all lives matter and chastise him for saying all lives 
matter, to the point that he has to withdraw his belief that all lives 
matter and go back to saying,

[[Page H4570]]

you're right, you're right, it's just Black lives matter.
  That is nowhere near approaching the dream that Martin Luther King, 
Jr., had just about 2\1/2\ miles down the Mall here in front of the 
Lincoln Memorial.
  So we had people, after 9/11, return to loving and appreciating and 
an outpouring of support for first responders, law enforcement, because 
they saw that, when push came to shove, the huge majority of law 
officers put their own life at risk for the benefit of others without 
regard to race, creed, color, or national origin, gender, age. They 
don't care. Their job is to serve and protect, and they do an amazing 
job.
  I just keep going back to the statement of the police chief, that 
police don't feel support most days, but they need it now. But when 
elected officials contribute to stoking the flame of hatred and 
animosity toward our law enforcement, then people that don't have the 
reasoning ability that most of our elected officials have get stoked. 
They get inflamed. And we don't need anybody coming out and blaming 
guns before that person even knows what kind of guns were used.
  I know we have friends that keep saying, if you are on the no-fly 
list, which means if you are on the list that has a great deal of 
arbitrariness to it, to the point that this administration will not 
even tell Congress how they decide who goes on the no-fly list, and 
even though they won't tell us how to get off the no-fly list if you 
are arbitrarily and mistakenly put on it, as Ted Kennedy and so many 
others have been, that is a formula for disaster for totalitarianism.
  We don't need an arbitrary list that is concocted in secret with the 
secret way of getting off that we are not aware of. That is not the way 
you go about trying to take away people's civil rights to keep and bear 
arms.
  After seeing the disaster in Dallas, there are a number of things I 
knew. One is that the people in Texas--most of them, except for the 
agitators, so many that have come in from outside, but most of them--
will respond and show their love and support for our law officers 
because we love law abiding in Texas.
  I hope and pray, Mr. Speaker, that we can stop the divisiveness. 
There is nothing wrong with arguing. There is nothing wrong with 
debate. That is how we got our Constitution--a lot of yelling and 
fussing, bickering, came together. There is nothing wrong with 
disagreeing.
  Until one person in this Congress or in the White House has 100 
percent lock on God's truth all the time, then we need to argue, we 
need to debate. I would submit we need to be prayerful in how we 
approach what we should do, but it is good to debate.
  I grew up in a family of four kids. We argued, fussed, bickered, but 
we came together as a family, and still do. In times of hurting, we 
still come together, and that is what we need to do as a nation.
  I look forward to the day when there is no group that includes a race 
color, a skin color, in its name. I look forward to that day when it 
just doesn't matter. And it seems clear to me that as long as we keep 
calling out distinctions between ourselves with matters of race, creed, 
color, national origin, gender, age, that there will continue to be 
bias and prejudice further engendered.
  I have seen video, including those recently, where I was horrified to 
see what happened. I didn't care what color the officer was. I didn't 
care what color the victim's skin color was. I was horrified that a 
victim would be treated as victims have been recently.
  I look forward to the day when the percentage of people committing 
crimes, according to race, have no need of being kept because it 
doesn't matter. We care about how you act, not how you look. But as 
long as those numbers keep being kept, they need to all be looked at.
  We need to get to the bottom of not just why so many African 
Americans are being killed in America--as we see from the numbers the 
FBI puts out, the huge majority are from other--the lives are taken by 
other African Americans. And I look forward to my friends getting upset 
about that someday, about the numbers of deaths in cities controlled by 
African Americans that have made it hard to possess guns unless you are 
a criminal.
  I have people that want to constantly point to our justice system and 
say: See how unfair it is?
  Well, in my court--I was asked just last week: Did you have any 
capital murder cases? Have you ever had cases where you had to look 
someone in the eye and pronounce the death sentence?
  I had two. I tried three capital cases. They take a long time to try 
because--particularly with the jury selection.
  Someone--the same person said skeptically: And let me guess; both of 
those were Black.
  I look forward to the day when people don't skeptically assume that 
everything is about race. As it just so happens, the two of the three 
capital murder cases where I had to sentence someone to death, they 
were White defendants. The one case where the defendant did not get the 
death penalty, though he was convicted of murder, happened to be 
African American.
  I had an issue raised by a defense attorney on a death penalty case 
out of another court, but in our county, and they were wanting--and I 
was subpoenaed as a witness to testify about the disproportionate 
number of African Americans who had not been allowed to be grand jury 
foremen.

                              {time}  1330

  When they actually got the list of my grand jury--the judge doesn't 
pick the grand juries. Those are selected by grand jury commissioners 
of different races, creeds, colors, and national origin. As long as 
they are American citizens, they picked the grand juries, and then the 
only thing the judge picks in Texas is the foreman. After they got the 
list of grand juries that I have presided over and they saw that there 
was disproportionately more African Americans who had been foremen of 
the grand juries, they told me they didn't want me as a witness because 
clearly I was not going to help their case.
  But when I selected a foreman of a grand jury, I didn't care what 
their color was. I knew we needed good, sound leadership. Every person 
I ever selected as a foreman of a grand jury I knew was a caring, 
intelligent, and upstanding leader in our community. I didn't care what 
their color was.
  Jesus said: ``Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down 
his life for his friends.'' He certainly would know; He did exactly 
that. I love that being the first thing on the plaque for Father 
Damien, one of the two statues that we have in the Capitol from Hawaii.
  Abraham Lincoln on September 5, 1864, said: ``In regard to this Great 
Book''--and he capitalized ``Great'' and ``Book,'' talking about the 
Bible--``I have but to say, I believe the Bible is the best gift God 
has given to man. All the good Saviour''--and I know that term offends 
so many, but this was Abraham Lincoln's own words. ``All the good 
Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book,'' the 
Bible. ``But for this Book we could not know right from wrong. All 
things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be 
found portrayed in it.''
  Mr. Speaker, I want to finish with a verse and a personal incident. 
Since Abraham Lincoln and most all of our Presidents have highly 
commended the use of the Bible as getting this Nation on track when we 
become dislodged, disoriented, and divisive, we go to Matthew 22:35: 
And one of them who was a lawyer--being a lawyer, you figure, leave it 
to lawyers to try to stir up trouble. One of them who was a lawyer 
tested Him by asking Him: ``Teacher, which is the greatest commandment 
in the law?'' Jesus said to him: ``You shall love the Lord your God 
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'' 
This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it: 
``You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'' On these two commandments 
hang all the law and the prophets.
  Some people wonder about it. What does He mean, on those two 
commands, love God, love each other, hang all the law and the prophets? 
What does He mean, all the law and the prophets hang on those two 
commands?
  If you were to outline the Ten Commandments that God gave us and that 
most of our leaders in history have believed came from God, himself--
and that is why Moses up here, directly above me, facing me, is the 
only full

[[Page H4571]]

face of the greatest lawgivers in the history of the world. It is 
because, at one time, all of the Supreme Court thought those Ten 
Commandments were great commandments. Now, probably at least four would 
say that maybe five or six were okay. But for most of our history, they 
have felt those ten were great commandments.
  If you do an outline or you categorize all of those Ten Commandments, 
they all fit neatly under two categories: one, love God; and number 
two, love each other.
  That came home very clearly to me years ago when my mother had a 
brain tumor. We knew it would eventually take her. The doctors had made 
that clear. They made clear that there was nothing more that could be 
done. Mother had said that she wasn't interested in seeing more doctors 
because they had said the same thing.
  Since she was my lifelong English teacher--but especially my eighth 
grade English teacher--and she loved poetry, I threw one of her poems 
back at her from Dylan Thomas: ``Rage, rage against the dying of the 
light . . . Do not go gentle into that good night.''
  Mother wrote back. She was thrilled that I paid attention. But she 
quoted from another poem called ``Thanatopsis'' that talked about 
living with such faith that, at the end of life, you can lie down on 
the couch wrapped in covers around you.
  Well, the doctors said: We don't think she has got all that much 
longer to live. They weren't quite accurate; but she had been reduced, 
this incredibly brilliant woman, to a wheelchair. It took her a long 
time to say things. This incredibly brilliant woman put herself through 
Baylor, 2\1/2\ years. Her parents lived right there by the campus, so 
she could work full-time and go to school. I didn't know until after 
she passed she was a member of a big honor society there.
  But anyway, she loved our kids, and she loved our spouses. One 
weekend we decided, let's just have the four immediate children go back 
to Mount Pleasant and spend the weekend with Mom, and we did.
  That Saturday morning, we sat around the breakfast table for hours 
like we did years before. We told stories, we laughed, and we made 
good-natured fun of each other. We would disagree, and then we would 
come back around and kid and love each other. We went on for 3 or 4 
hours. Mother didn't say anything. But finally Mother said, ``This,'' 
and we all got quiet. We would stay there all night if it took it to 
hear what Mother had to say. And she got out, ``is my favorite thing.''
  That is all she had to say. When I left later that weekend to drive 
back to Tyler, it became clear that, if you were a heavenly parent, 
wouldn't you want your children loving you and loving each other? And 
all the law hang on those two: love your parent; love each other. It 
takes care of things. Then what Jesus said made perfect sense.
  I look forward to the day when Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream will 
be fulfilled and nobody will care about Black lives matter and White 
lives matter. Nobody will care what color people are, and we will come 
together again without any hyphenation as Americans. But as long as we 
have leaders who continue to pick at a scab and refuse to let it heal, 
then our law officers are in danger, our country is in danger, and this 
little experiment with a democratic Republic is in severe jeopardy.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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