[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17540-17541]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     SUPPORTING RIGHT-TO-CARRY LAWS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, today the House will consider H.R. 822, 
a long overdue measure to ensure that States recognize the concealed 
weapons permits issued by other States.
  This very simple measure has unleashed a firestorm of protests from 
the political left. I noted one polemicist, who obviously has not read 
the Constitution, wax eloquently of the constitutional violation of 
States' rights enshrined in the 10th Amendment. What nonsense. Article 
IV of the Constitution could not possibly be more clear: ``Full faith 
and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and 
judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may, by 
general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and 
proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.''

[[Page 17541]]

  It is precisely this article that requires one State to recognize 
driver's licenses or birth certificates or arrest warrants issued by 
another State. Without it, we are not a Union but merely a loose 
confederation.
  Well, then we're told this is dangerous and risky to allow honest and 
law-abiding citizens to exercise their lawfully issued permits in other 
States. Upon what basis do they make this claim? Certainly not upon any 
empirical data.
  The impact of right-to-carry laws, that is, laws that require the 
issuance of a concealed weapon permit to any law-abiding citizen, has 
been studied extensively, and the vast preponderance find that crime 
rates have fallen in those States after they've adopted such laws. No 
credible study has ever found that the enactment of such laws has 
produced an increase in crimes or suicides or accidental deaths.
  Overall, States with right-to-carry laws have 22 percent lower 
violent crime rates, 30 percent lower murder rates, 46 percent lower 
robbery rates, and 12 percent lower aggravated assault rates as 
compared to the rest of the country. Indeed, right-to-carry laws have 
been so successful that no State has ever rescinded one.
  So, if the left can't make a rational case on constitutional grounds 
or on empirical grounds, what is the problem? I suspect it comes down 
to what Ronald Reagan once called this irreconcilable conflict between 
those who believe in the sanctity of individual freedom and those who 
believe in the supremacy of the State.
  Years ago, I had the honor to work for the legendary chief of the Los 
Angeles Police Department, Ed Davis. During his 8\1/2\ years as chief 
of the LAPD, crime dropped in Los Angeles even while, during the same 
period across the rest of the Nation, it was ballooning by more than 50 
percent. Chief Davis founded Neighborhood Watch. He was an ardent 
opponent of laws that restrict ownership of firearms by honest 
citizens. His successful philosophy was predicated on the principle 
that, as he put it: ``It's not the responsibility of the police 
department to enforce the law. That is the job of every citizen. The 
police department is there to help.''

                              {time}  1020

  As citizens, we're an integral part of the laws that we enact. That 
doesn't mean we act as vigilantes, but it does mean that each of us has 
an inalienable right to defend ourselves and our families from violent 
predators with whatever force is necessary. And if we see a child being 
molested or a woman being robbed or an old man being beaten, we have a 
moral responsibility to intervene to the extent that we can.
  A concealed weapon in the hands of honest and law-abiding citizens 
makes us all safer. Simply knowing that there are responsible citizens 
among us capable of responding with force is itself a powerful 
deterrent to crime. That's the well-documented experience of every 
State with a right-to-carry law. But a society in which honest and law-
abiding citizens are disarmed by their government is a society in which 
the gunman is king.
  This is a truth that ought to be self-evident, but it is lost at the 
altar of the authoritarian left, which seems to concentrate all power 
in government at the expense of the people. Perhaps the best test of 
the self-evident nature of that truth is illustrated in a full-page 
newspaper ad I once saw that offered a cut-out sign, which in 150-point 
type said: ``There are no guns in this house.'' The caption under it 
asked, ``Would you post this sign in your front window?''

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