[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]
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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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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