Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, we debated this exact bill 3 weeks ago, and it failed with bipartisan opposition. That is right. Even Democrats voted against it.
The Active Shooter Alert Act is an unnecessary gimmick to cede more authority to the already highly politicized Biden Department of Justice.
States already utilize emergency alert systems to warn the public about natural and human-made disasters, extreme weather events, active shooter situations, and other emergencies. Federal, State, and local officials already use the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, IPAWS, to send emergency alerts to mobile devices and to alert media platforms.
According to a 2020 report from the Government Accountability Office, every State has at least one alerting authority, and there were more than 1,400 alerting authorities across the country.
If the States are already using an alerting system to notify the public about threats, what is this bill really doing?
This bill is creating a new Federal job at the Biden Justice Department to encourage State and local governments to issue public alerts any time a firearm is used anywhere. Don't take my word for it. During the markup, Congressman Jones said that this bill would be most effective at reminding us that the threat of gun violence exists all around us, but it does little to actually protect us from it.
That is right. This bill is about Democrat fearmongering that guns are an ever-present threat and we cannot be safe until Big Government rounds up every last one of them.
In fact, Congressman Jones went further, calling the committee to consider another bill that would ban assault weapons. Chairman Nadler followed by voicing his support.
It is no wonder Democrats want to push forward a bill that would create a reminder about this threat of gun violence against us. They want to create a culture of fear so they can achieve their ultimate goal. If they really wanted to improve emergency alerts for active shooters, we would be moving a bill to improve the system that is already in place that are sent to mobile devices.
In a recent report, GAO stated that the local alerting officials had expressed concerns about the inability to target WEA alerts with accuracy which made local officials reluctant to use the system at all.
For example, GAO found that one alerting authority sent an alert to a specific geographic area to warn the recipients about a suspicious package, but the alert was received by people located 4 miles outside of the intended target area.
Another concern is that these alerts are one-way communication systems so alerting officials have no way of knowing if the messages are actually received by the public. GAO has also found that another local alerting authority sent an evacuation order through an alert but didn't know whether the intended recipients actually even received that notice.
Utilizing these alerts for active shooter incidents could have tragic consequences. This is yet another reason this legislation should not have been rushed to the floor without going through regular committee order. We could have had hearings, we could have received expert testimony, and we could have been able to fully vet this initiative.
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Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Speaker, I would just add that the gentleman said it has nothing to do with the Biden Justice Department. Well, it certainly does. It gives $2 million to the Biden Justice Department to create a program the States can already do. This is the same Biden Justice Department that is the most political Justice Department we have ever seen.
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Massie), the co-chair of the Second Amendment Caucus.
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky.
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop).
Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. So as others have said--and this is the language that struck me--when this matter was in committee, before it failed under suspension of the rules here, for good reason, this paragraph struck me.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, ``imminent threat alerts include natural or human-made disasters, extreme weather, active shooters, and other threatening emergencies that are current or emerging.'' So the existing IPAWS system explicitly covers this issue, which again, takes you back to, then, what this debate has materialized as.
The soon-to-retire gentleman from Michigan on the Republican side recited an event in North Carolina where Little League teams withdrew from a tournament because they heard shots. The police in Wilson say that they had no evidence that there was an active shooter involved.
That incident had nothing to do with what we are talking about today, and yet, the gentleman from Michigan offered it in support of this bill.
The gentleman from Illinois or the gentleman who just spoke about the Highland Park shooting in Illinois--by the way, according to the wisdom of the majority and some Republican Senators, we passed support for red flag laws--well, Illinois has a red flag law. That person had been implicated in all circumstances that a red flag law ought to respond to. It didn't work.
We have been doing gun control since 1968. Are you satisfied with the trajectory? Does it salve your conscience to speak in a loud voice about how outraged you are and do something else that has no capacity to solve the problem?
Because you refuse to grapple with the problem. I have said that all along. I am going to continue to say it. It is not the prevalence of guns. It is but for causation, ladies and gentlemen.
We have always had guns in ample supply across this country. Always. But until the 1960s, you never heard of a mass shooting, and they have increased at a rapid rate in recent years. So it is not the guns that have changed.
Let's look at what may have changed. We have changed the culture. Could that be it? Could that be the reason that some reckless idiot in an automobile leaving the area of that Little League tournament was engaged in gun play, firing off a weapon? That never would have happened at an earlier time in this country.
The same political forces that tried to change the culture and succeeded is the side that wants to eliminate gun rights as the answer to a problem they have created.
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina.
Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. So we see it over and over and over again. Accountability would require you to point to the success of your actions. You have engaged in--Mr. Massie detailed them--bill after bill after bill after bill, slowly eroding people's gun rights away.
Yet, the problems that you have caused get worse every year. They get worse every year in the cities that you control.
Let's grapple with the problem, and let's stop the alarmism and the stigmatizing and the fearmongering that you believe to substitute for policy. It does not.
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs).
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume while I am waiting because I have one more speaker who would like to weigh in.
As has been said, this bill is redundant. States can already do it if they so choose. This bill is part of a series of legislation that the Democrats have passed that attacks law-abiding citizens' Second Amendment liberties.
We know what happened a few weeks ago with the red flag law that was passed by this body. Someone doesn't like you, and they go to law enforcement or they go to a judge. There is a hearing. You are not allowed to be at the hearing. You are not allowed to have your lawyer at the hearing. You are not allowed to confront your accuser. You haven't been charged with a crime, but they can take your gun, take your property, take away your Second Amendment right, and then you have to go petition the court to get it back.
This bill gives $2 million to the Department of Justice. I mean, giving more money to the Justice Department, the most politicized Justice Department I have ever seen, the same Justice Department where over a dozen whistleblowers have come to our office talking about concerns they have with investigations that the FBI and the Justice Department are doing, the same Justice Department that treated parents as domestic terrorists for simply showing up at school board meetings and voicing concerns about the curriculum being taught to their children, that Justice Department, we are giving more money to do this program?
The same Justice Department that, sad to say, has joined the effort by the left to intimidate the Court, our highest Court in the land, we are giving money to that Justice Department?
Make no mistake, this Justice Department has done that by their failure to enforce the statute to protect our Supreme Court Justices. When people are protesting at their home, trying to impact and intimidate the Court, this Justice Department refused to deal with the statute that is exactly on point. We are giving money to that Justice Department.
So for all those reasons, we have real concerns with this legislation, and I would urge opposition to the bill.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. JORDAN. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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