Second Amendment Rights

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Madam Speaker, I have never been more proud to be a Red Raider than after that introduction, I can tell you that.

I thank the gentleman, my fellow freedom-loving Texan, Representative Gohmert, for yielding me the time. We will miss Representative Gohmert in this Chamber and the fight that he brought every day for the people in this people's House.

I will lend my thoughts and sentiments on this issue of violence. As my colleague from Florida mentioned, human violence, sometimes perpetrated with guns, is a human problem, a problem of the soul, a problem of society, the degradation of our culture and our families. These are issues far deeper than legislation can reach, I can assure you.

I understand, because I am human, that we want to do something and that while that may be a human response, as lawmakers, we should ask the question not can we do something symbolic, can we do something to make the American people feel good, because that is not going to save a single elementary school child. We have to ask the question: What can we do that will actually work, and what can we do that will also preserve the rights of our citizens to protect themselves?

I think we often forget and fail to start this conversation with the genesis and the fundamental rationale for the Second Amendment. Our Founders knew good and well the abuses, the corruption, and the tyrannical force from a coercive central government. They wanted to make sure that not only could we preserve our happiness and our life and liberty from the crazy and the criminal; they wanted to make sure that we would have a last check on tyranny with an armed citizenry.

Folks, the Second Amendment is there, and we have preserved this experiment in liberty and democracy for 240-plus years, even though, in the 20th century alone, tens of millions of people have been slaughtered by their own government. We have preserved this great beacon of liberty, this shining city on a hill, because of that founding principle that the Second Amendment is the citizen's last check on an abusive government.

The Declaration of Independence says it best. It talks about the mission of a government that has the consent of the people to protect and secure the liberties of those people, and whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. But it goes further. It says when there is a long train of abuses and usurpation, reducing the society to absolute despotism, it is the right and even the duty of the people to throw off that government.

Folks, that is the context to the Second Amendment. It is not just to give east Texans and west Texans a hunting license. And I think it is critical.

As we grieve with our brothers and sisters in Uvalde, and it is heartbreaking and unthinkable to see that tragedy play out and to see these families suffer, but I think it is incumbent upon mature lawmakers and leaders of the greatest and freest country in the world to take a deep breath and ask the question: Will these things that we are talking about with respect to gun control actually do anything to stop these crazy, murderous people from committing their crimes?

We need to let Uvalde grieve. We need to let the final report come out. We all need to be more vigilant.

Quite frankly, when we talk about 18- to 21-year-olds and extreme risk orders and all the litany of things that are being debated in this Chamber, we ought to let the States like Texas, along with their communities, figure out how to solve these problems and secure their schools and communities.

The Federal Government's mission at its core is to secure the liberties of the people and provide for a common defense. Let Texas figure this out.

My goodness, the very gun control laws that were passed out of this Chamber have been in place in cities and States with the highest gun- related crimes.

No more feel-good measures, no more infringing measures. Let's pray for Uvalde. Let's let Texas solve those problems. Let's protect the God-given, constitutionally protected rights of every American to defend themselves against the criminal and, God forbid, a coercive government.

God bless America, and I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding.

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