Joseph Woodrow Hatchett United States Courthouse and Federal Building

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, Speaker Pelosi just lectured us. She said guns are the number one killer of children in America.

That is not true. Abortion violence is the number one killer of children in America, until today. There is no right to abortion in the Constitution. And, thankfully, the Supreme Court finally said that decisively. Thanks be to God.

There is a right, however, a crystal-clear right in the Constitution to keep and bear arms. But here we are today. Congress is moving full steam ahead to restrict the right to self-defense for law-abiding gun owners and the right to due process for all Americans.

This legislation is the wrong approach, and we ought to oppose it.

In our Judiciary markup several days ago, some of our Democrat colleagues here on the floor today openly said they don't care about the Constitution. They don't care about its protections. They want to overlook that. This bill does that. It is the perfect example of Members of Congress simply ignoring the Constitution.

President Biden and his administration are already disobeying laws that we have on the books to revoke firearm dealer licenses over simple clerical errors. This legislation is going to make that worse. This is not going to help anything. It is going to lead to more errors, more false flags, more backlogs in the NICS system. There is nothing in this bill to fix that. There is nothing in this bill to increase school safety.

Mr. Speaker, we want real solutions. We think that we ought to harden the schools; real, physical improvements to help protect children, but that is not here. They didn't have time for that.

Two weeks ago, I had a very moving conversation with Pastor YJ Jimenez. He is a pastor on the ground ministering to the people of the Uvalde community who have suffered such an unspeakable loss. He said something that was really clear, and I think it is echoed throughout America. People paid a lot of attention to it.

He said, You know what, we need to address the root causes of all this bloodshed. He said America's problem is not guns. America's problem is a heart problem. And he is exactly right.

Today we are seeing the results of decades of decline in the secularization of American society and the open assault on our institutions: family, religion, morality, the breakdown of law and order.

We see the results of all this on young people--in clinical settings, in schools, and everywhere else.

We want to do things that matter.

It is not more gun control.

It is not more Federal laws.

It is not more intrusive government.

We need to address the root causes.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source