Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BOEBERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Rosendale for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I love what Mr. Biggs was saying, how these are our God- given rights. That right there is fundamental, and that is why we have a government, to secure our God-given rights.

None of our rights come from politicians. Our rights are not granted to us by the executive, by the legislative, or by the judicial branch. They are granted to us by God. These are our natural rights. They are unalienable. For anyone to say: ``I am from the Federal Government, and I am here to help,'' well, those are very dangerous words.

Another thing that is dangerous is gun-free zones. I am a cosponsor of Congressman Massie's bill that would remove the law that makes our schools gun-free zones. That makes them soft targets. Our children are our Nation's most valuable assets. The more value an asset has, the more protection it should have.

We secure our banks. We secure our airports. We secure the White House. We have even seen the Capitol surrounded by fences, miles of razor wire on top of that fence, 26,000 armed National Guardsmen, because even my colleagues on the other side of the aisle understand that borders that are secure and armed security work.

We need to harden our schools. We need to secure our schools. I believe this starts at a very local level. Maybe there is something there that can be boosted by the Federal Government, some of this unspent COVID money to go toward boosting security in our schools.

We don't need to be inching away the rights and liberties of American citizens. Liberty lost never comes back. We don't get that liberty back that we give away. We certainly were not elected to legislate away liberty from our constituents. We are here to keep the American people free. That is the proper role of government.

A lot of people would like to say that the Second Amendment, well, it is great because we know you want to hunt. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. Our Founding Fathers did not just return from a hunting expedition when they created the Bill of Rights, when they drafted that. No, they had just got done liberating a nation from a tyrannical, oppressive King, and they wanted a government that was so strong and powerful that it would be able to fight off that tyranny and oppression that anyone from around the world might seek to reimpose on this people. But they also wanted a government so limited that it would never impose that same tyranny and oppression on its own people.

Isn't it interesting that we heard for weeks how American taxpayers need to send money to Ukraine to make sure that those citizens are armed?

Now the same people who are saying that we were bought by Putin because we didn't want to send billions and billions of dollars to Ukraine while our southern border is unsecure, while we have an invasion taking place at our southern border, when we have our own supply chain crisis, we have inflation that is skyrocketing, and we said maybe let's just put America first for a minute. But the same people who made these accusations against those of us who would vote against that spending are now seeking to take the rights away from American citizens.

And these same people who had no problem arming Ukraine and wanting to disarm American citizens also call to defund the police. We even saw 24 of our colleagues from the other side of the aisle just today vote to not provide added security to our Supreme Court Justices who have had mob violence at their homes, murder attempts against a Supreme Court Justice. And 24 of these radical leftists said: No, they are fine. We are not going to send police to protect you. You won't be able to protect yourself. It is all rogue.

This is a lawless administration that we are serving under, and I would implore the Senate to not compromise on the American citizens' rights.

And I would like to just note that the 10 that we have heard of who are considering siding with these people who would limit the liberties and freedoms of American citizens are either not coming back to the Senate, they are retiring, or they are not up for reelection. I think that that is very telling, and I will not give an inch on the Second Amendment, of the rights of the people to keep and bear arms to protect themselves, especially when cries from this Chamber are calling to defund law enforcement and our southern border is wide open, allowing the cartel to send whatever they want through those borders without any added security.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Rosendale for leading this special order tonight, and I make reference that it is the House Freedom Caucus that is really setting the standard and protecting American liberties.

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