Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. MASSIE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that would stop the District of Columbia from taking any action to prevent law-abiding citizens from possessing, using, or transporting a firearm.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller that struck down the D.C. handgun ban, as well as the unconstitutional gunlock provision, it is still difficult for D.C. residents to exercise their God-given right to bear arms.

Congress has the authority to legislate in this area pursuant to article I, section 8, clause 17 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the authority to ``exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever'' over the District of Columbia.

Through unreasonable regulation, arbitrary time limits and waiting periods, and a ridiculous registration renewal process for guns that have already been registered, the government bureaucrats in the District continue to interfere with the D.C. residents' rights to self-defense.

As The Washington Times reported earlier this year, the District of Columbia has passed the first law ever in the United States that requires a citizen who has already legally registered a gun to pay a fee for re-registration, go to police headquarters, and submit to invasive fingerprinting and photographing.

This is pure harassment. Why would the D.C. government want to punish and harass law-abiding citizens who simply want to defend themselves?

As everyone with even the smallest bit of common sense knows, criminals, by definition, do not follow the law. They will get guns any way they can. Does anyone actually believe that strict gun controls laws will prevent criminals from getting guns?

Strict gun control laws do nothing but prevent good people from being able to protect themselves and their families in the event of a robbery, home invasion, or other crime.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. MASSIE. As John Lott, author of ``More Guns, Less Crime,'' says:

The District of Columbia should have learned the problems with gun control the hard way. There is only 1 year after D.C.'s handgun ban went into effect in 1977 where its murder rate was as low as it was prior to the ban. The D.C. murder rate rose dramatically, relative to other cities after the ban, with its murder rate ranking either number one or number two among the 50 most populous U.S. cities for half the time the ban was in effect and always in the top two-thirds.

However, as soon as the ban and, more importantly, the gunlock regulations were struck down in 2008, the murder rate fell, dropping by 50 percent over the next 4 years. Indeed, every place in the world that has banned guns has seen an increase in murder rates.

This experience can be seen worldwide. Island nations supposedly present ideal environments for gun control because it is relatively easy for them to control their borders, but countries such as Great Britain, Ireland, and Jamaica have experienced large increases in murder and violent crime after gun bans.

For example, after handguns were banned in 1997, the number of deaths and injuries from gun crimes in England and Wales increased 340 percent in the 7 years from 1998 to 2005.

Mr. Chair, I would like to point out that the other side of the aisle, when we talk about voting rights, they are very opposed to voter ID and to photograph IDs for voting. I think they would be very opposed to fingerprinting and photographing in order to exercise that basic fundamental right to vote, which is what they often say.

Well, I would remind them that the Second Amendment says a right to bear arms is a basic right. If they argue that fingerprinting and photographing is invasive and disproportionately disenfranchises minorities from that basic right to vote, how can they not argue the same thing about the basic right to own and bear guns?

In closing, my amendment states that none of the funds made available in this bill to the District of Columbia will be used by the D.C. government to prohibit the activity of people in possessing, acquiring, using, selling, or transporting firearms.

It defunds four laws passed in the wake of Heller that constitute an attempt by the D.C. government to overrule and ignore the Heller decision. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this commonsense amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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