Assault Weapons Ban of 2022

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding.

Fact: This assault weapons ban bill is unconstitutional. Chairman Nadler even recognized, when he stated that ``the problem is that these weapons are in common use.'' And in Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that the Bill of Rights clearly protects firearms in common use. This is an unconstitutional piece of legislation.

Fact: The assault weapons bill will ban weapons in common use, and my colleague will most assuredly target citizens to take their guns.

In the words of Democratic perpetual candidate Beto O'Rourke: Hell, yes, we are going to take your AR-15 and your AK-47.

That is the truth, and everyone knows it. Don't hide behind it. Everybody knows precisely what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing.

Fact: Less than 2 percent of all prisoners had a firearm obtained from a retail source at the time they committed their crimes. Only 13 percent of the offenders in State prison populations obtained their firearms from retail stores. Criminals usually don't get their guns at gun stores through legal channels. That is a fact.

Another fact: Upwards of 80 percent crimes are committed by people with prior arrest records, often by people with prior convictions for violent crimes or prior weapons offenses, and almost none of our gun control proposals--and particularly this one--are targeting this group. That is the truth.

Those are the facts. The fact is, as Thomas Jefferson said: ``The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.''

This is the precise kind of tyranny that my colleagues are exercising today, precisely when they are opening our borders up to lawless cartels and gangs, and precisely when they are defunding the police. Precisely when they are making our communities unsafe, they want to limit the ability of the American people to defend themselves and to exercise their Second Amendment rights to protect their families.

That is what is happening on the floor so my colleagues can appeal to their liberal White voters while they ignore the Black men and women and Brown men and women who are buying weapons to defend themselves in criminal hellholes in our country.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source