[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 34 (Monday, February 26, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H1262-H1264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Gohmert) until no later than 10 p.m.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for such 
great words of encouragement. I was hearing it all across east Texas as 
I was all over the district this past week. People are encouraged when 
it comes to the economy. People are feeling better about the economy. I 
am hearing it.
  They are encouraged, but after yet another school shooting, another 
mass shooting, I am hearing more and more people who are asking: Why? 
Why is this?
  Of course, some say, you know, the United States is the only place 
that mass shootings occur. Of course, that is just false. There are 
worse mass shootings in other parts of the world.
  Some say if we get rid of all guns in the country, then we could end 
the senseless violence, but when you try to tell that to people who 
were in Rwanda during the period when 800,000 people or so were 
slaughtered with machetes for the most part, it goes beyond the 
question of the weapon.
  We have seen airplanes used as bombs for the worst mass execution in 
our country's history. Of course, Pearl Harbor, bombs were used, bombs 
themselves. We know in Oklahoma City, apparently it was anhydrous 
ammonia, fertilizer. We have seen the Boston bombing utilizing pressure 
cookers.
  So if the answer is to get rid of the weapons, we got to get rid of 
airplanes. We got to get rid of rental trucks. We

[[Page H1263]]

got to get rid of fertilizer. Pressure cookers have got to go. Machetes 
have got to go. Once you start listing the things by which people with 
evil intent have killed others, you realize this is an endless list. 
There are people who have exacted violence on others all kinds of ways.
  There is nothing more senseless and ignorant. And I don't mean that 
mean-spirited. I mean that everybody is ignorant of something; some are 
just ignorant of a lot more things. But the statement that, ``I just 
want Congress to do something even if it is wrong,'' well, that is how 
you lose civilizations, by doing something even if it is wrong. But 
there are plenty of indications, things that we can do, things we can 
agree on.
  It seems absolutely senseless that a school would know about a 
student who is repeatedly involved in violence, threats upon other 
students, threats upon other people, but actually not just threats, 
actual violence. We want to look into this to see if this is really a 
national phenomenon that some of our schools, to avoid having students 
continue to be arrested, that they actually try some mediation process 
so they avoid giving a 17-, 18-year-old student an arrest record, which 
once they have an assault that is confirmed in court, then certainly 
that would affect their ability to get a gun at all of any kind.
  So, actually, when you start analyzing all of the ways that the 
system broke down and didn't work, the things that should have 
protected those precious lives in Parkland, Florida, instead of saying, 
``Just do something even if it is wrong,'' how about if we do something 
that is right? How about if we do something that would actually prevent 
that kind of senseless violence from being exacted upon innocent 
people?
  I mean, we got a sheriff that I don't know what kind of a department 
this guy is running. I know when there was a shooting involving a 
domestic case--and until terrorist activities and mass shootings 
started occurring, most often if there was violence at a courthouse, it 
was over a domestic affairs case.
  I saw the video. I was already in Congress. I was no longer sitting 
on the bench in that courthouse, but I saw the video. And as soon as 
there were gunshots, those deputies--I knew them; I loved them--were 
running to the sound of the gun. They didn't hunker behind anything. 
They ran to the sound of the gun.
  And that has been repeated around the country. Law officers hear a 
gun and they run to the sound of the gun. But, apparently, it appears 
from what we are reading, that the sheriff there had a department that 
is living in pre-Columbine days.
  Just like before 9/11, it was thought that if your plane is 
highjacked, just don't create a problem; there will be negotiations 
when you land somewhere.
  I still believe to this day there were American heroes on all four of 
those planes; and if the first three planes had known they were going 
to be used as a bomb to kill others, there were Americans that would 
have stepped up and stopped it just like those incredibly heroic 
Americans did who brought down the plane in Pennsylvania.
  So I don't think it will ever happen again. There will always be 
people who love this country and love life so much that they would give 
theirs to save so many others. That is what Jesus said is the greatest 
love, and clearly the fourth flight had that.
  But here is a story from the Florida Sun Sentinel. It is entitled 
``School shooter Nikolas Cruz: An unending saga of disturbed behavior 
and red flags,'' written by Brittany Wallman, Paula McMahon, Megan 
O'Matz, and Susannah Bryan. They document that he did things like--
well, of course, we know apparently he didn't know his father. He knew 
his adopted father. Of course, his adopted father and mother had died. 
Apparently they had a wonderful home, swimming pool, lots of comforts; 
but he didn't have a moral compass at all. Apparently he threatened his 
mother, threatened his brother, violence on his brother. At least 
threatened violence on his own mother.
  We know from this article, at least, it says the adopted father, Mr. 
Cruz, didn't own any guns. But Nikolas was diagnosed as having a string 
of disorders: depression, attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, 
emotional behavior disability, and autism. His mom told the sheriff's 
deputies he also had obsessive-compulsive disorder and anger issues. He 
had counselors in school and at home, according to DCF records. He took 
medications. We don't know what all medications he took. Maybe there 
was some relationship there.

  We ought to be able to discern how many of these people have taken 
different types of drugs and which ones they were. We know there seems 
to be a correlation between people committing suicide and many of the 
medications that are prescribed to kids who feel troubled.
  This article says that Nikolas was a mama's boy, yet he threatened 
his mother. His mother called the police to say he got physical with 
his brother and with her. It sounds like a physical assault on his 
mother.
  My late mother was close to 5-foot. I was a lot bigger than she was 
in high school, but, whew, I knew not to even think about raising a 
hand.
  When he was 14, his mother reported he had hit her with a plastic 
hose from a vacuum cleaner. A few months later, she told deputies he 
had thrown her against the wall because she took away his Xbox gaming 
system. A year later, she told deputies Nikolas had punched the wall 
after she took away his Xbox. Foul language, insults, disobedience, 
disruption.
  Cruz's behavior was exactly what schoolteachers frowned upon. He went 
to a different school for a while which offered a program for 
emotionally and behaviorally disabled children, but, according to the 
article, Cruz could not control himself.
  Now, it talked about in the article that he was 5-foot-7, 120 pounds. 
I know a lot about being bullied up through junior high, up through 
eighth grade, because I was very small. I didn't start growing of any 
size until high school. I may have been the smallest guy on our 
football team the first couple of years in high school. I know a lot 
about getting bullied. I know a lot about getting my nose bloodied. I 
never killed anybody.

                              {time}  2145

  I had parents that would make all four of us kids quite angry, but 
they taught us respect of authority. They disciplined us, and they made 
sure we were in Sunday school and church every week.
  It looks like the school and the community and the sheriff's office 
all helped Ms. Cruz and Nikolas--and I use ``helped'' loosely--avoid 
having a criminal record that would have prevented him from having a 
gun and would have prevented him from killing 17 people. At least, it 
would be a whole lot more difficult without a gun like he had.
  But they all worked together, unknowingly. Of course, it was not 
intentionally. They thought they were helping him. And what they were 
doing, what was coming down the road, was a disaster of massive 
proportions.
  We do need to do something that prevents this in the future. Some 
say, well, it is time to end the personal transfer loophole, so a 
father can't give a son a weapon.
  Well, perhaps if Nikolas' father had taught him--I have got a friend 
from Florida I was visiting with this weekend, and he said the worst 
whipping that he ever got was when he pointed a gun, his grandfather's 
gun, at his brother. He never did that again.
  I am not advocating violence on kids. I know the Bible says:

       Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the 
     rod of correction will drive it far from him.

  But as a judge, a felony judge, I have seen kids be abused beyond 
propriety that justified criminal penalty. But we could take some 
action, it would seem, that would prevent entities, whether it is the 
Air Force, whether it is the Broward school system, the Broward County 
Sheriff's Office, from preventing someone from avoiding appropriately 
having a criminal record that would prohibit them getting a gun. That 
way, we are talking about something that would prevent this same thing 
from happening.
  When it comes to the personal transfer of weapons, as John Locke was 
saying the other day, in over 100 years, there has not been a mass 
shooting that involved a gun received in a personal transfer, whether 
it is from father to son, friend to friend.

[[Page H1264]]

  Of course, if there is somebody at a gun show who is not having a 
background check and they are selling more than one weapon there, there 
is a good chance they are committing a crime. It is not a loophole at a 
gun show. Anybody that is there selling guns needs to have the 
background check done, and they do. And you can't get the gun until it 
has gone through a proper background check, and you get it from someone 
who ensures that everything is followed.
  I had won a gun at an auction some--I have heard some people say, 
yeah, we have got to stop that, too, getting a gun at an auction. I had 
to go through the background check. I had to pick it up at a store. I 
felt sorry for the store.
  But there are stores that sell guns that are constantly having to 
clear somebody who bought it online, because you cannot pick up that 
gun until the background check is done, and you go to someone who has 
ensured the background check is done and then get the weapon. So that 
seems to be something we could do.
  And then we were talking to some of our Freedom Caucus tonight, and 
unlike the no-fly list, where the Obama administration would not tell 
us how you got on it and would not give us any idea of how you appeal, 
how you get off--we would plead for some people who were law-abiding 
and shouldn't have been on there. Sometimes they get off; sometimes 
they don't.
  But we, as Congress, House and Senate, need to pass a bill that sets 
up a due process where, if you are on the no-fly list, you can appeal 
and get off. We ought to make it where, if you had been guilty of 
assaults, whether in school or in the home, as Nikolas Cruz was, or 
whether it is in public, that ought to prevent you from getting a gun.
  Of course, domestic situations, things often get so heated. I have 
seen terrible charges alleged against a father or mother during the 
course of a divorce, and that is something the State legislature could 
deal with. If it involves some Federal entity, it is something that we 
can deal with and say this is how you could appeal and get an unjust 
decision blocking a gun purchase.
  But we also know that those people who say, hey, there have been 3 
million or so people who shouldn't buy guns who have been blocked from 
buying guns, well, they don't know the rest of the story. The rest of 
the story is there aren't but just a few dozen people who get 
prosecuted out of 3 million.
  Someone told me yesterday it was only a few dozen of the 3 million 
who are ever prosecuted for improperly filing for a gun. There may have 
been 3 million people denied, but it turns out there were mistakes 
because of the ways in which the names are checked.
  Do you really want to get to the bottom line, Mr. Speaker?
  John Adams was President in 1798. Some of these very issues kept 
coming up. The people who founded this country, they were better read 
than most students are today even after college. And even those who 
didn't believe the Bible, they quoted it.
  In fact, in this very room and in the room right down the hall where 
the United States House of Representatives met for the majority of the 
1800s, the Bible, during sessions, was the most quoted book in our 
history. In here, in that room, in the Senate down the hall, the Old 
Senate, the current Senate, the Bible is the most quoted book in our 
history, and there would seem to be good reason.
  Within the Bible, itself, you find the words:

       For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than 
     any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul 
     and spirit. It is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
     the heart.

  But John Adams was President after two terms under President George 
Washington, under our current Constitution. He knew precisely what the 
Constitution said. He knew how it had come about. He was Vice 
President, President of the Senate when the Bill of Rights was created. 
He was part of that process.

  Yet John Adams explained, President John Adams explained, in 1798, 
the bottom line, that people in this country have got to understand, if 
we are going to address the kind of violence that has sparked around 
this country. John Adams explained it. His words were more than 
prescient. They are perpetually true as long as we are operating under 
this Constitution.
  As he said, knowing, having read many times every word of the 
Constitution, the Bill of Rights, having helped generate this Bill of 
Rights, he knew what they were. But he said:

       Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious 
     people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any 
     other.

  You want to know where the answer is? If people are going to be safe 
in America, we have a choice. We either start anew, teaching morality, 
teaching that there is a right or wrong, that not everything is 
relative, and even if those who don't believe there is a God don't want 
to hear about it, it is okay to talk about God. You don't have to 
believe it.
  Look at Jefferson's words. He made clear--of course, it always amazed 
me how he could put the biggest grievance in the original declaration 
against King George was ever allowing slavery. So on the one hand, he 
could see the problems created for America by ever allowing the 
inhumanity of man to man, but he talked about the best hope being the 
teaching of Jesus, that we should be teaching, the best hope for 
America.
  But if we are going to be safe, we have got to teach morality, 
encourage religion, not force secular humanism, hedonism on America. It 
is okay to talk about it. It is okay to teach about it.
  In fact, the studies I saw as a felony judge repeatedly indicated the 
best hope of cutting recidivism of criminals is if they go through an 
intensive Christian Bible study in prison. So afraid of talking about 
the Bible, so afraid of talking about Christianity.
  There is no official religion in this country, but, as the Supreme 
Court said at the end of the 19th century, this is a Christian nation. 
Not everybody was Christian, of course, but it was founded on Judeo-
Christian beliefs. It was founded on the Bible. And that is the reason 
Moses' full face is up there in the middle, because he was felt to be 
the best lawgiver in the history of the world. Obviously, the Supreme 
Court doesn't think so much anymore.
  We have a choice: teach morality, encourage religion, or, in order to 
be safe, we have got to give up the Second Amendment. We have already 
given up parts of the Second Amendment in a part of it. We have given 
up part of our freedom of assembly. We have given up part of our 
freedom of speech. We have given up a big hunk of freedom of religion, 
because this Constitution was only meant to govern a moral and 
religious people. And unless we are willing to start teaching morality 
again, we have no hope of being safe under the current Constitution.
  I pray to God, and prayers can work. God will hear from Heaven. I 
pray to God that people will wake up and we won't have to discharge 
different parts of our constitutional rights in order to remain safe.
  I look at the interior of this Bible that belonged to my uncle. It is 
a New Testament. On the front, engraved in the middle ``May the Lord be 
with you.'' He had it in World War II.
  But inside, at the top, it says: ``The White House, Washington. As 
Commander-in-Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the 
Bible to all who serve in the Armed Forces of the United States. 
Throughout the centuries, men of many faiths and diverse origins have 
found in the Sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel, and inspiration. It 
is a fountain of strength and now, as always, an aid in attaining the 
highest aspirations of the human soul''--signed, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  That is not a mistake that President Roosevelt made. It needs to be 
one we don't make either.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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