Police Our Border Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BACON. Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague, my friend from California, for yielding.

Mr. Chair, I want to speak on H.R. 354, the previous bill that we just debated on. It is my legislation that I have worked on for 7 years. It is the LEOSA Reform Act.

What does this bill do?

It says that if you are a retired law enforcement officer, Mr. Chair, or if you are an off-duty law enforcement officer and you maintain your gun qualifications, then you can carry your sidearm. We used to have LEOSA that was standardized throughout all 50 States, but over time, over the last decade, it has gotten very uneven, and it has been chipped away at in various States. We want to level the table again for all of our law enforcement officers.

When I talk to our county sheriffs, and I have three of them, this is their number one priority. Their number one ask is to get LEOSA passed again. When I talk to our Federal law enforcement, it is also one of the top requests that they have.

Mr. Chair, why is it called the law enforcement safety bill?

It is because, just picture, if you will, if you are in a theater, and someone who is deranged starts shooting their weapon at people, hurting or killing innocent people, who would you want to have in there, Mr. Chair?

I would want to have an off-duty policeman or a retired policeman who has maintained their qualifications and who has been trained to respond to these kinds of killers and these kind of incidents.

This is what LEOSA allows. It improves the safety of wherever they are with these retired policemen or off-duty policemen.

I have talked to Federal agents who have arrested serious narcotics dealers, and they have a price on their head. They have a bounty, if you will. When they are retired, they want to carry, as well, to defend themselves and their family.

Mr. Chair, I hope we can have a bipartisan vote on this bill. It is one of the top requests of law enforcement officers at the local, State, county, and Federal level for us to get this done. This would be a way to say thank you to the law enforcement who serve every day, who put their lives on the line, and who still want to serve when they are retired and be there when and if needed.

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