Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022
Floor Speech
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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Speaker, before I talk about the substance of this bill, or the lack thereof, I would like to put it in the context of the other dozen or so unserious, unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unsafe responses to gun shootings in this country that the Democrats have offered and passed in this Chamber.
What have they done? Well, they passed a law to ban magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds. The chairman of the Rules Committee claimed that this would stop shootings like the one at Virginia Tech. What he failed to mention is the shooter at Virginia Tech never used a magazine that had more than 15 rounds. That is an example of an unserious solution that has come from this body.
What else have they done? They have changed the definition of a gun dealer so that any law-abiding individual who sells a firearm to anybody and makes a profit off it now might be a gun dealer and, therefore, prosecutable in a Federal crime.
What else have they done that is unserious or unconstitutional? Well, they have passed a law to ban gun trafficking. The problem is that is already illegal.
Who did they sweep up in this dragnet in this new law? Well, they swept up domestic violence victims who might ask a neighbor for a firearm. Now, they can be prosecuted. Not the neighbor, not just the Good Samaritan, but also the domestic violence victim can be prosecuted as a gun trafficker under a bill that they passed here.
Recognizing this flaw, I offered an amendment to fix it in the Judiciary Committee. Every Democrat but one--one of them had a little bit of common sense--voted against that amendment to fix their own bill.
What else have they done? Well, they passed a bill that I am going to call unconstitutional on arrival. It has already been ruled unconstitutional if you read the D.C. v. Heller decision. The Supreme Court Justices said that you can't force Mr. Dick Heller to keep his gun unloaded and disassembled in his house because that violates the Second Amendment. But that is exactly what one of their laws that came through this Chamber in just the past couple of months does. It is called the so-called safe storage act. It is already unconstitutional.
Who likes this bill more than anybody? Home invaders. Oh, my gosh, wouldn't it be great to know that, by Federal law, everybody who has a firearm now has to have it locked up and unattainable, inaccessible in the amount of time that it would take to respond to a home invader?
What else have they done? A red flag bill that deprives citizens of their due process and endangers police officers, who are going to be required to respond in predawn raids of people who haven't had due process, have never had their day in court, haven't even reached a level of evidence that is sufficient. The red flag bill is bad.
What else have they done? They passed a bill to deprive 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds of purchasing semiautomatic rifles and semiautomatic shotguns. They are already deprived of their constitutional right to buy a handgun, but now we are just going to sweep in all of these things.
Are they going to then raise the draft age to 21 now that we are saying Uncle Sam will give you a gun? Uncle Sam can conscript you to the military, send you overseas to fight for a Constitution that doesn't even protect you or your wife, who is at home taking care of the kids, if you are 18-, 19-, or 20-year-olds.
They don't care. This one is also unconstitutional on arrival. The Ninth Circuit, one of the most liberal circuits in the country, has already ruled that.
Why is this so disturbing? We heard earlier today from one of my colleagues in this debate that she wants to ban assault weapons. Well, the House Democrat Twitter account tweeted that all semiautomatic rifles are weapons of war. Really? There are a lot of people in Kentucky who own Remington 750 deer rifles who are going to be shocked to find out that they purchased a weapon of war. If you saw one of these, I think you would all agree this is not a weapon of war.
It is an alarm to every American who is out there watching this debate that they are coming after your guns.
Now, let's get to the substance of this bill, or the lack thereof. Why are we here debating this bill? This is the second time we have voted on it, the second time we debated it. Why are we here again? Because they tried to suspend the rules of this body and get it through without following the rules of this House, and they failed. That is why we are here again, to give it the debate it deserves.
The bill is called the Active Shooter Alert Act of 2022. In the Democrat cities where they defunded the police, I think you should call it the you are on your own act of 2022. Yes, that is right.
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Mr. MASSIE. They are going to tell you that you are on your own.
But can you turn this thing off in Chicago? How will you get any sleep because you have a shooting literally every night in Chicago? If they were serious about stopping crime or helping individuals, this would have been called the active violence alert act.
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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Speaker, what about violence committed with a car, violence committed with a knife? No concern for that because the true purpose of this bill passing here today is to scare people. It is to scare people on their phones. They can't get away from their phones.
It is going to be popping up saying, be afraid, somebody's got a gun, and they are going to try and condition the American public to ask to repeal the Second Amendment, either explicitly or implicitly, here in this Chamber.
Madam Speaker, I urge opposition to this bill.
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