Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022

Floor Speech

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Ms. MACE. Madam Speaker, in South Carolina, unfortunately, we are no stranger to mass shootings.

Seven years ago in June, we had nine Black church members at Mother Emanuel who were murdered in cold blood by a single killer.

On April 26 of this year, right adjacent to a little league baseball game in the evening, in a parking lot, over 30 shots were fired. The harrowing video of seeing young kids literally crawling off the baseball field in tears, parents frightened, scared to death about their children and this shooting had taken place just next door.

On Memorial Day of this year in Charleston, there were 13 people shot that evening, including three law enforcement officers, to say nothing of the hundreds of mass shootings that we have seen so far this year, including over two dozen in our schools and Uvalde.

More recently Highland Park--and I will mention that my father's last duty station in the military as a U.S. Army General was at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. I spent a year of my life in Highland Park going to Highland Park Middle School. I am very familiar with that community and have been heartbroken by what they have been through over the last few weeks.

And in Chicago, there are mass shootings every single weekend.

The beauty of H.R. 6538 is that I agree with both sides of the aisle and what they are saying today. As someone who owns seven firearms, a rifle, two shotguns, and four pistols, I support law-abiding citizens' right to own firearms included in the Second Amendment. The beauty of this bill is it is not requiring or demanding or mandating anything. It is not taking away anyone's Second Amendment rights.

When I have spoken to law enforcement across not just the First Congressional District, but across the entire State of South Carolina, when I speak to sheriffs, when I speak to police chiefs, I realize and understand that there is a patchwork of technology out there that some are aware of, some are not.

So, for example, in one county in my State, we have something called code red where residents can opt in. Another county has nothing, another municipality or locality can do a reverse 911, but there is nothing consistent. The beauty of this bill is it doesn't infringe on anyone's Second Amendment rights.

It does do a study by the Comptroller General under section 5 to understand what States are and aren't doing and what some of the best practices are.

In section 4, we have an advisory panel that is created, their job-- and these are law enforcement officers, these are everyday first responders, people who are in the thick of it every single day facing these mass shootings--is putting together best practices so that the coordinator, as defined in section 3, can provide this information. This encourages States and localities and municipalities what the best practices are, and helps provide that information to them and the tools that they need so the next time--it is not a matter of ``if'' but a matter of ``when''--the next mass shooting is, they can, if they want, if they choose to voluntarily alert those in the community.

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