Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Madam Speaker, Alexis de Tocqueville said that the defining trait of socialism is ``a profound opposition to personal liberty and scorn for individual reason, a complete contempt for the individual.''

Socialists are hostile to our Bill of Rights specifically because it protects the individual against the State by guaranteeing our most fundamental rights and the means to defend them, and the guarantee that we can't be deprived of them except through due process of law.

You have the right to have your day in court, to face your accuser, to present evidence on your behalf, to contest the charges brought against you.

Now, if someone is adjudged to be dangerously mentally ill, of course they should not have access to firearms or to any other weapons. They shouldn't be on the street where they can do harm at all. They should be confined, during the course of their illness, so they can be treated and not endanger themselves or others.

We already have commitment procedures that address this in concert with our Constitution. In that process, you appear before a judge, you can know the charges, you can face your accuser, you can plead your case, and you can present evidence on your own behalf in open court.

But not under this bill. Under this bill, an anonymous accuser, including a jilted date or an ex-roommate, can trigger a secret proceeding that you don't even know is happening until the police show up at your door to strip you of your Second Amendment right to self- defense, and the burden then falls on you to try and restore it.

And it won't stop here. The left has already branded speech they disagree with as dangerous.

But they are right about one thing. This is an extreme risk bill. It is an extreme risk to our most fundamental individual rights as Americans.

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