Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, law-abiding Americans shouldn't have to sacrifice their right to privacy to exercise their Second Amendment rights because they live in the southwestern part of the United States.

I don't understand why they want to take the people who stand on the border and take this onslaught of the failure of the administration to defend and prosecute those who violate the laws of our country, and they want to have something that imposes upon our right to privacy and our right to exercise our Second Amendment rights.

Law enforcement tools are not taken away by the fact that we have limited this intrusion upon the rights of the people in the States that are on our southwestern border. In fact, law enforcement has the right to at any time walk into a Federal firearms dealer and request any sales records, and they mandatorily must provide them. A bouncer can walk into a Federal licensed firearms dealer and get these records every day. The amendment doesn't prohibit gun dealers from reporting multiple sales of purchases. It just doesn't mandate on four States of this Union a violation of their right to privacy.

The playing field should be level in anything we do under the law. But the fact is we are unleveling the playing field for the very people that stand down in the direct onslaught of the invasion coming across our southern border as a result of this administration's failure to properly enforce immigration policy.

This is something that we shouldn't even be discussing, limiting the ability and making reporting requirements on four States and involving their right of privacy contrary to the rest of the union. I don't understand why this is even being discussed.

I oppose the attempts to toss out the Second Amendment rights of the people of the State of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, I want to point out that this recordkeeping is directed at multiple rifle and shotgun sales of a semiautomatic character. It becomes a habit around here to call anything that will fire six shots when you pull the trigger an assault rifle.

In fact, this requires the reporting of semiautomatic shotguns, as well as of semiautomatic rifles. People all over the United States--and particularly in our State--hunt every day with these weapons. Families have these weapons

in their homes. They are not assault weapons. They are semiautomatic shotguns and rifles. This reporting requirement is on those weapons, and it doesn't say anything about assault weapons.
I question the logic of this whole thing when we are talking about the privacy of the individual under the Second Amendment and about the right for Americans to keep and bear arms.

Therefore, I think that the language that is in place today is the right language for the policies of the United States.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, I would point out that this law pertains only to the southwestern border States and that my friends from Connecticut and New York are not affected by this rule. There is no reason why you can't buy long guns in New York or in Connecticut and ship them down to the border. This is discriminatory against four States and four States only. It is bad policy.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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