[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 20, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H6916-H6920]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1645
                        SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. 
Good) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, the Second Amendment in our 
Constitution is the amendment that guarantees or ensures all the other 
freedoms that we hold dear in this country.
  The right to defend oneself is a God-given right, but we are unique 
among the nations of the world in that that right is protected for us 
and enshrined in our Constitution based on the wisdom of the Founders.
  There is a mechanism for changing the Constitution, but it is 
difficult. Yet, what this body wants to do is to find ways to do what 
the Constitution clearly says, which is that the Congress has 
absolutely no constitutional authority to restrict the rights of law-
abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.
  I am going to read a few quotes from the Founders from about 250 
years ago, and the reason why we go back to the Founders is to 
understand what they intended with the Constitution. We have the 
Federalist Papers, of course, and then other writings by the Founders.
  Alexander Hamilton said: ``The best we can hope for concerning the 
people at large is that they be properly armed.''
  Samuel Adams said the Constitution shall ``be never construed to 
authorize Congress to infringe . . . or to prevent

[[Page H6917]]

the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from 
keeping their own arms.''
  James Madison, the first Congressman from my Fifth District and our 
fourth President, said: ``The Constitution preserves the advantage of 
being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every 
other nation,'' where ``the governments are afraid to trust the people 
with arms.'' Still true today.
  Noah Webster said: ``Before a standing army can rule, the people must 
be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. . . . A 
military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but 
such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they 
will possess the power . . . to resist the execution of a law which 
appears to them unjust and oppressive.''
  Thomas Jefferson, from my home district in Virginia, from where the 
gentleman from Texas went to school, said: ``What country can preserve 
its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this 
people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.''
  Thomas Jefferson also said: ``No free man shall ever be debarred the 
use of arms.''
  Back to James Madison: ``The right of the people to keep and bear . . 
. arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of 
the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural 
defense of a free country.''
  George Mason said: ``To disarm the people--that was the best and most 
effectual way to enslave them.''
  Patrick Henry said: ``Are we at last brought to such humiliating and 
debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our 
defense?'' ``If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in 
whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to 
us, as in our own hands?''
  Samuel Adams said: ``The said Constitution be never construed to 
authorize Congress to . . . prevent the people of the United States, 
who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.''
  Thomas Paine: ``Arms discourage and keep the invader and the 
plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world. . . . Horrid 
mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of 
them.''
  Patrick Henry also said: ``Where and when did freedom exist, when the 
sword and purse were given up from the people?''
  We are doing that right here in this body. We are taking the sword 
and the purse away from the people.
  He said: ``Unless a miracle in human affairs shall interpose, no 
nation ever did or ever can retain its liberty, after the loss of the 
sword and the purse.''
  ``The great object is that every man be armed.''
  ``Everyone who is able may have a gun.''
  Final quote from Thomas Jefferson, then I will defer to the gentleman 
from South Carolina: ``Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . 
disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit 
crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for 
the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, 
for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an 
armed one.''
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I have to head down to the House Judiciary 
Committee to defend the Second Amendment from the attacks being levied 
by my Democratic colleagues as we speak. We are in there debating.
  I would add just one thing to what the gentleman just eloquently put 
out, the understanding for the American people that when this Nation 
was founded, we were dealing with debate about what the structure of 
government should look like. Those who were suspicious of consolidating 
power, the anti-Federalists, were raising questions.
  James Madison, a Virginian, was making points through the Federalist 
Papers. He said in response to some of the critiques: ``All the other 
checks and balances will always prevent tyranny, but should tyranny 
ever triumph, the U.S. Constitution provides a mechanism to restore 
constitutional order,'' he says. ``Besides the advantage of being 
armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every 
other nation,'' Madison wrote, ``the existence of subordinate 
governments, the State government to which the people are attached,'' 
their State and local governments, ``and by which the militia officers 
are appointed,'' because that well-regulated militia meant a well-
ordered militia, not regulated the way we talk about it, a well-ordered 
militia. ``And it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition 
more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can 
admit of.''
  The final point is, the Second Amendment does not create a right of 
revolution against tyranny. That inherent right is universal. The 
Second Amendment provides the tools and the power for the people to 
stand and thwart tyranny.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
South Carolina.
  Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Good for having this Special 
Order.
  Let me give you a live example of what happens with a well-armed 
militia, the purpose of the Second Amendment is for the citizens of 
America to bear arms.
  This past Sunday, a deranged gunman opened fire in a food court of a 
shopping mall in Greenwood, Indiana, which is a suburb of Indianapolis. 
Police say this deranged gunman fired 24 rounds within 2 minutes, 
killing three and injuring two others.
  Nearby was a young man, Elisjsha Dicken, a private citizen who took 
quick action to stop that gunman. Elisjsha was legally armed and 
carrying his own weapon under Indiana's constitutional carry laws. 
Thank God for this young man.
  In summarizing Elisjsha's response, the Greenwood chief of police 
said, ``I will say his actions were nothing short of heroic. He engaged 
the gunman from quite a distance with a handgun.'' The police chief 
went on to say Elisjsha was ``very tactically sound as he moved in to 
close on the suspect, and was also monitoring for people to exit behind 
him. He has had no police experience, no training, no military 
background.''
  What a true hero. Elisjsha was simply going about his business at the 
mall when the unthinkable happened. It is hard to imagine how we might 
react in that situation, but Elisjsha was equipped; he was prepared; 
and he had courage to confront that sick individual, who was determined 
to kill others.
  Elisjsha would not have been able to do so if the liberals who want 
to take away our Second Amendment rights had their way with this so-
called gun control.
  To my Democratic friends who are determined to restrict our Second 
Amendment rights, I ask you this: How many more people might have died 
last Sunday in Greenwood, Indiana, if you had had your way? How many 
more people would have been slaughtered if Elisjsha didn't have the 
ability to exercise his constitutional rights? Thankfully, we will 
never know the answer to that question.
  Americans deserve the right to protect themselves and others when 
their lives are in severe danger. That is why it is so critical to 
strongly defend our Second Amendment rights against the antigun left 
that is so intent to demoralize our Second Amendment and our 
Constitution.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South 
Carolina.
  Ronald Reagan, to paraphrase, said: Freedom is only one generation 
away from extinction, and it must be fought and preserved from one 
generation to the next, and no nation having lost its freedom in 
history has ever regained it.
  You think about how, in the past year and a half, we have seen our 
most basic, most essential freedoms trampled upon by those who would 
also trample upon our Second Amendment rights. They have moved to 
restrict our own healthcare decisions about whether or not we have to 
take a vaccine that we may not want or may not need. They have 
restricted our ability to travel and to move, where we want to go, 
whether or not we can assemble, whether or not we can worship, whether 
we can go to work, whether we can operate our business, whether or not 
we can earn a living. They want to trample upon our rights to defend 
ourselves.

[[Page H6918]]

  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
Cawthorn).
  Mr. CAWTHORN. Mr. Speaker, 40 yards, 10 rounds, one man, countless 
lives saved. I speak today to acknowledge a new American hero.
  Just 2 weeks after Indiana passed a constitutional carry provision, 
one man stood tall in the face of imminent death, protecting his loved 
ones and his community from evil. Elisjsha Dicken's incredibly quick 
and heroic actions are not just to be applauded in the media. They 
ought to be used as a blueprint for American citizens who legally carry 
nationwide.
  There is strong evidence that the best defense an American can 
possess is a sidearm and the know-how to use it. Mr. Speaker, law-
abiding citizens use firearms to defend themselves against criminals as 
many as 2.5 million times a year, or about 6,850 times a day. This 
means that, each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often 
to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. Moreover, 
citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do 
every year, as was the case in Greenwood.
  The analysis is clear. Law-abiding, gun-toting Americans are the best 
line of defense against random acts of mass violence. Make no mistake, 
Congress' gun control lobby would have rather taken the handgun from 
Elisjsha's hand and replaced it with blood-soaked corpses of many 
innocents in Indiana.
  Mr. Speaker, I speak for many Americans when I say we will carry; we 
will protect ourselves; we will neutralize threats to our safety and 
security. We don't need you to defend us. Stop coming for our security. 
Stop coming for our constitutionally protected rights. Retire to a nice 
seaside estate protected by armed guards and let red-blooded, freedom-
loving Americans conceal carry and, when necessary, kill those who 
threaten our lives. Remember, you are your own first responder.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North 
Carolina.
  Mr. Speaker, can you confirm how much time we have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia has 17 minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Georgia (Mrs. Greene), my good friend.
  Mrs. GREENE of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to stand here with 
my friends--Chairman Perry, Mr. Cawthorn, Mr. Good, Mr. Norman--in 
defense of our Second Amendment rights. I say this not only as a Member 
of Congress, but I say this as a woman, and I say this as a mother. I 
say this also as an adult who knows what it is like when my school was 
held hostage by another student with a gun, a very upset student.

  It is not the guns that are the issue. It is the severe mental 
illness, the breakdown in America with our morals and our values, and 
this severe divide among all of us as Americans.
  I want to add to this, and this is a story that I haven't even been 
able to share with my good colleagues here, but just this weekend, now 
that I am a Member of Congress, many of us get a lot of death threats, 
but one of my family members received a voicemail on their personal 
cell phone from a man saying very bad things about me, and then saying: 
``This is what I am going to do to her,'' and he cocked a gun and shot 
it several times.
  This is the type of threats I get, and it came with the threat of a 
gun. But I tell you this as a woman and a gun owner: I need to be able 
to have any kind of gun that I want to own to defend myself, to defend 
my family, to defend my home. God forbid if someone chose to do 
something to me.
  You see, here is the issue: It doesn't matter how many gun control 
laws we put in place. It doesn't matter how many types of guns are 
banned. The criminals and the people who intend to do harm to others, 
those that would murder someone even if they could murder them with 
their bare hands, are still going to do it, and they are not going to 
be the ones that hand over their guns to the government. Oh, no, they 
are going to be keeping their guns so they can continue breaking the 
law.
  We have guns coming across our border every single day illegally. We 
have terrorists who have been caught at our border, and then we have a 
lot of got-aways. We don't know how many of those are terrorists and 
what kind of criminals, how much human trafficking, how much child 
trafficking is happening down there. Crime is up in every single city, 
county, and small town across America.

                              {time}  1700

  Americans need their guns, and there should not be a ban on assault 
weapons because it is not about the gun or the weapon; it is about what 
is inside someone's human heart.
  What we have to do is we have to stand in defense of and protect our 
Second Amendment because it is the most important freedom that we have. 
If we are unable to do that, and we lose it in the name of the so-
called issues--what they are pointing at really is a tool. A gun is a 
tool. The gun doesn't get up and kill people on its own. It is the 
people who do it.
  When you take away all the guns from the legal gun owners, the 
criminals will be the ones that are left with the guns. Then do you 
want to know what happens? Even if those guns are gone, they are still 
going to commit murder, and they will just use something else.
  It is about elections. That is why they are trying to ban assault 
weapons, because inflation is out of control, crime is out of control, 
gas prices are difficult to afford. Now, our President is moving us on 
to some sort of clean energy that just will fail America even more.
  This isn't what we need to do, and I am so happy that there are 
people here that want to stand in defense of people's gun rights.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from 
Georgia.
  I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry), the chairman 
of the Freedom Caucus.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from the State of 
Virginia (Mr. Good) for helping host this Special Order and being here 
in my absence.
  Oftentimes, I think that we make this partisan. Republicans are seen 
or characterized as unempathetic or uncaring in the face of so many 
tragedies. Of course, it couldn't be further from the truth. We are 
empathetic. Our hearts break just like everyone else's.
  But we recognize that in this imperfect Union that seeks to be more 
perfect every single day, with every single action, that the right to 
defend oneself, the right to bear arms, is enshrined in the founding 
documents, the founding documents that we all take an oath to uphold 
and defend.
  We don't just dismiss that like it doesn't exist. We understand that, 
unfortunately, there are evil people in the world and that this right 
exists, given to us by God, outlined in our Constitution, so that we 
can then defend ourselves from any assailant, from any attacker, 
because we have the God-given rights of liberty and of life. We have 
that.
  We seek some kind of protection for ourselves that also protects our 
God-given rights but doesn't allow the criminals to prevail upon us in 
our homes, in our businesses, and on the streets.
  Yet, right now, while Americans are suffering the worst cost of 
living in 40 years--I know the administration doesn't want to talk 
about it. Right now, violent crime is up 30 percent, an unprecedented 
rate, not told to us by Scott Perry or  Bob Good or Ralph Norman, but 
by our FBI, an unprecedented rise in violent crime.
  Right now, right down the hall, instead of dealing with the rise in 
crime; instead of dealing with the fact that DAs, supported by the 
extreme radical left, are letting criminals out on the street; not 
dealing with the issue that millions of people are flowing across our 
border, certainly laced with a certain criminal element with no regard 
to American laws coming across our border; notwithstanding the fact 
that some of the people that lead our country at the highest levels 
bailed out violent criminals and paid for their bail to be on the 
street to then assault and assail their neighbors, that is all 
happening right now.
  Down the hall, as we speak, our colleagues on the left are trying to 
reinstitute the assault weapon ban, the assault weapon ban that they 
know, since 1994, when it was instated then, did absolutely nothing to 
solve this problem.
  Because they don't really care about crime--they don't care at all. 
We are

[[Page H6919]]

seen as unempathetic. Meanwhile, every city, every weekend across the 
country, is like a war zone. You would actually be safer in a war zone. 
I know. I have actually been to a couple of them. You would actually be 
safer in a war zone than downtown Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, or New 
Orleans.
  But they are down the hall working on a solution that doesn't fix 
anything. It doesn't fix a thing. It takes our rights away and doesn't 
solve anything.
  We are here because we believe that Americans have the right to 
defend themselves, to be free, and to be safe in their homes. We are 
here as Freedom Caucus members to say that we do stand with the 
Constitution. We actually believe in our oath. We think that we can do 
both. We think that we can defend ourselves and stop most criminals' 
violent activities.
  But there have to be consequences. What you are seeing right now 
across the country are the consequences of not holding people 
accountable. That is what you are seeing right now, violent criminals 
being let out on the street over and over again. The message being sent 
by this administration and our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle is it is okay. It is okay to just do that. It is okay to commit 
any crime you want.
  Heck, there was a gentleman in New York minding his store. He was 
attacked. He defended himself. Unfortunately, the attacker's life was 
taken. What did the district attorney do? He charged the man who 
defended himself with murder. That sends a signal to every criminal 
that it is okay to commit your crimes.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not okay. This solution is not going to solve 
anything except disarming law-abiding citizens, meanwhile knowing that 
the criminals that are willing to disregard the law and use the weapon 
to kill somebody are certainly going to disregard the law and maintain 
that weapon when you tell all law-abiding citizens that they must turn 
theirs in.
  Mr. Speaker, this cannot stand. We are here today to say that no 
matter what happens down the hall, no matter what vote they bring out 
of that partisan-led committee to disarm America, we will oppose it 
with every fiber of our being. We will oppose it.
  Even if we lose on this round, in 6 months, when we are in the 
majority around here, if they were to be successful in imposing this 
confiscation on American citizens, the confiscation of not only the 
rights to life but the rights to self-defense, we will reinstate them.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good) for 
carrying the load for us here.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Perry.
  Chairman Perry, have you ever been asked by the media about a police 
officer killed in the line of duty? Have they ever asked you about that 
shooting?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry) 
for the purpose of a colloquy.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Faulkner was killed in Philadelphia by Mumia Abu-
Jamal, and all they usually ask me about that is: What are we going to 
do to get that killer out of prison?
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. I am never asked about the 100 police officers 
killed last year in the line of duty.
  Mr. PERRY. Right.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. I am never asked about the police officers who 
are shot in America's largest cities, as you have mentioned. I am never 
asked by the media about that.
  I am never asked about the hundreds of shootings that take place 
every weekend in America's largest cities, these war zones, these crime 
zones that are under Democrat control.
  There is always a connection here. These are cities that have been 
controlled by Democrats. These are Democrat policies carried to their 
conclusion.
  What they are trying to do to the entire country, which has been in 
place much longer in these major cities--you mentioned Baltimore, 
Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, on and on, New Orleans, and so forth. That 
is where most of the crime is in this country. That is where most of 
the shootings take place in this country, and they don't care about 
that.
  Do they want to harden our schools? Do they want to do what is 
necessary to keep our kids safe?
  I have long been an advocate in my home State of Virginia, the 
community where I served as a county supervisor, in allowing armed 
personnel within the school system who are trained and want to carry 
concealed and be part of a rapid response team, teachers and staff, to 
be armed in the schools to keep the children and the staff safe. The 
Democrats are against that.
  We all know the truth. Mr. Norman from South Carolina mentioned this 
a moment ago. The best response to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy 
with a gun. The best response is more good people with guns, more law-
abiding citizens with guns, as the Founders wrote and intended and as 
the Founders recognized 250 years ago when we didn't have this violent 
crime in America's largest cities.
  If the Second Amendment is not safe, then no other right is safe. 
There is a reason why the Second Amendment comes right after that First 
Amendment guarantee to speech, free speech, to free assembly, to free 
worship, to petition our government for our grievances. It is that 
Second Amendment right to keep us safe, to ensure we remain a free 
people.
  If you look around the world, if you look at the nation of Ukraine, 
Ukraine would be a different place today if the citizens were armed and 
permitted to be armed the way we are here in this country. Taiwan would 
be a much safer country today from the threat of its large enemy on its 
border if their citizens were armed the way our citizens are armed 
today.
  The Founders recognized in their wisdom that not only did we possess 
a God-given right to defend ourselves, to keep ourselves and our 
families safe, but also that we would be unique among the nations of 
the world in enshrining that in our Constitution and protecting that 
right and saying that Congress has no authority to infringe on that 
right for law-abiding citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, my good friend from Virginia is absolutely 
right. That is our duty here.
  People think that the Federal Government maybe is supposed to provide 
so many things. I am sure that every one of us has different visitors 
that come in and ask us what the Federal Government can provide for 
them.
  What this government was set up for by our Founders--and, 
unfortunately, many of our citizens don't know it--is to provide us 
with the rights that have been given to us by God and to defend them. 
That is what we are supposed to be doing here.
  Right down the hall, it is not about making sure that we maintain our 
rights to defend ourselves, to maintain the rights that everybody in 
that room swore an oath in the Constitution to uphold and defend. They 
are actually looking to strip the very people that are law-abiding, the 
very people that would follow the law, would purchase the weapon 
legally, would file the paperwork and do everything that is required in 
their States. Those are the people that they wish to disarm.
  They are not in there talking about stopping criminals. They are not 
talking about stopping criminals. They are talking about stopping law-
abiding citizens who are trying to defend themselves when somebody 
breaks into their home at night or their store or prevails upon them on 
the street when they are out with their children or, heaven forbid, our 
citizens dare to travel to one of these cities anymore.
  I represent a company in my district called Starbucks. Their CEO is 
closing stores all across the northwest of our country because of 
safety. People want to go to Starbucks. They can't because it is not 
going to be there anymore, not because of sales, but because of safety.
  If that is not a sign of a sickness--and the CEO of Starbucks, I 
don't know that he thinks that the answer is an assault weapons ban. 
Maybe he does. But I haven't heard of the Starbucks being held up by an 
assault weapon.
  Every single week, every single weekend, people are killed in major 
cities, horrific violence, perpetrated whether it is with a knife or 
whether it is with a handgun. But it is the people that do it. These 
are inanimate objects. Great Britain banned handguns a long time ago 
and is now considering banning knives because knife attacks are on the 
increase.

[[Page H6920]]

  Our country has a sickness, and we are sympathetic to it. But taking 
the tool away doesn't address the sickness. Unfortunately, our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so focused on the firearm 
that they can't even see past the fact that they are disavowing their 
oath to the Constitution.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania for his comments.
  The first 10 amendments to the Constitution were intended to protect 
the individual, the people, from the government. The Constitution 
protects the individual, the minority, from the tyranny of the 
majority.
  There is a reason why we are not a democracy. We are a representative 
republic based on the rule of law, based on a Constitution that would 
ensure that we remain free, that would ensure that we protect the 
rights of the individual.
  The number one job of the Federal Government, that we have gotten so 
far away from here in this body, is to keep us safe and secure. Part of 
that is to ensure that our rights are safe and secure, and that 
includes the right to defend ourselves.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry).
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, the right to defend ourselves. Mr. Good and 
I, our colleagues on this side of the aisle, we haven't voted to defund 
the police. We support law enforcement.
  Even though we support fully law enforcement, here is what we know: 
When someone breaks into your home and you pick up your phone, it is 
going to take a certain amount of time, unless law enforcement is 
sitting out in your driveway. You are going to have to do something 
about it at that moment.
  What our colleagues on the other side of the aisle right now are 
telling us is: No, you are not going to have any opportunity. You are 
not going to have any ability to do anything about it.
  You can use harsh language. I suppose you can throw the lamp that is 
on your bed stand in self-defense, but that doesn't stop the 
assailant's bullets that are coming into your home for who knows what 
reason.
  Mr. Speaker, we deserve--because we have earned the right to defend 
ourselves. We live in America. We have a Constitution that we live 
under. It outlines our rights as ordained by the Good Lord above. We 
cannot have this Congress and man take them away from us.
  Mr. GOOD of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my 
time.

                          ____________________