Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022
Floor Speech
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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Jim Jordan for yielding the time.
You know, I find it interesting that all across the country, Democrats are moving to defund the police. Here, today in Congress, we have a bill called the Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022.
Well, if they defund the police, a more appropriate title for this bill would be the you are on your own act of 2022. Yes, that is right. We think you are in danger, but nobody is coming to help you because we have defunded the police.
But what does this bill really do? You know, if it were anything other than an attempt to demonize guns, to panic people, it would cover things like stabbing, car violence. How come we never hear about car violence? It would cover all violence, but they have chosen to single out the Second Amendment and firearms.
The technology already exists to do this, and the States that want to do it have already done it, and the campuses across the country that want to do it have implemented this a decade ago.
So, why are we doing this at the Federal level? What is the purpose to take what would have been good ideas at the State level, bring them up here, launder them, and then go tell the States how they have to do it, even though they are already doing it in many cases?
What good does a one-size-fits-all bill do when you dictate from D.C.?
You know, rural Kentucky is not like urban Chicago. If you hear a gun go off in rural Kentucky, your first instinct is not to panic.
Now, if your phone comes on and tells you that you need to panic, you might be inclined to do that. But when you hear a gun go off in Kentucky, you assume somebody is hunting. You assume they are target practicing. They are doing something that is lawful.
In maybe 1 out of 10,000 cases that it is not, it is just somebody poaching a deer, probably, but it ain't nothing to panic about. That is what they want you to do.
You know, it is different when you hear a gun in Kentucky than when you hear one in downtown Chicago, which gets me to the point: Can you turn this system off in Chicago?
Is anybody going to be able to sleep in a Democrat-controlled city where crime is rampant, where they are moving to defund the police? How will you get to bed?
Every few hours, there is violence in Chicago, or pick your favorite big city run by a big, liberal Democrat where they have the strongest gun bans in the country. They have more violence than anywhere else.
So can you turn it off? That would be my first question for those poor folks in Chicago that have to deal with the sort of public policy that Democrats have advanced.
Now, one of the questions that came up in our committee that was never answered: Is this going to tell you after the fact, after the shooting has happened, or will it alert you to one that they think is about to happen?
We asked, and I asked the bill's sponsor multiple times: Does it do that, or does it just tell you after something has already happened? He didn't know. He wouldn't answer. I doubt he will give us a straight answer here today, if he chooses to answer.
So what good is it if it is going to tell you after it has already happened?
So, you know, here is what you have to wonder. Every time there is a bill in Congress, it has a great name. At first, it sounds like a great idea. Then when you dig into it, well, somebody has already done it, and it probably is already done at the State level.
So, for instance, there are a couple other bills that they passed a couple weeks ago that are already being done. They passed a bill that would ban gun trafficking. Well, the problem is, that is already banned.
So what you have to do is dig down and say: Why are they passing another bill? What does this bill do that the one that exists doesn't already do?
Well, we found out it would prosecute domestic violence victims if they acquire a firearm for their protection from a neighbor. Well, that doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but the name of the bill sounded pretty good until you dug down into it.
The same thing for red flag laws. There is a version of involuntary commitment in all 50 States that already exists, but the difference is there is due process. So why are they doing a shooter alert bill here, an active shooter alert bill?
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Mr. MASSIE. So why are they passing a law to do something that is already being done? Well, they want to take Federal control, and then what are they going to do with that Federal control? They want to panic and scare the general public with their phones. Everybody has got one today. You won't be able to turn it off.
Oh, no. Be afraid of a gun. Be afraid of a gun. Here is another alert. Be afraid of a gun.
That is so they can advance their other agenda, their real agenda, which is to ban all guns and to effectively repeal the Second Amendment.
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