WEBVTT 00:00:01.520 --> 00:00:11.430 Our first witness will be Representative Thomas Massie. Thomas Massie represents Kentucky's fourth congressional district. He serves as the chairman of the House Second Amendment Caucus and 00:00:11.440 --> 00:00:21.510 sits on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. Congressman Massie, you are recognized for your opening statement. Thank you, Chairman Paul and Ranking Member Peters 00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:29.910 for allowing me to speak to the upper chamber here today. Uh, I'm very passionate about this issue of the right to keep and bear arms. I 00:00:29.920 --> 00:00:39.150 got my first firearm when I was 12 years old from my father and with that I learned the responsibility and the rights that come with owning a firearm. 00:00:39.160 --> 00:00:48.030 Uh, I formed the Second Amendment Caucus about a decade ago and uh, have been using that venue to bring in people like 00:00:48.040 --> 00:00:56.110 Alan Gura, the lawyer who was responsible for arguing the Heller case and also the McDonald case and he won both of those cases in the Supreme 00:00:56.120 --> 00:01:04.189 Court. In fact, we've had Dick Heller in our caucus and we've had some of those brave men who have stopped mass public 00:01:04.199 --> 00:01:13.390 shootings and it's been a great venue for teaching uh, myself and others more about the Second Amendment. In keeping with the committee's request, 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:21.630 I've prepared a speech, but I'll only deliver part of that and then with your indulgence I'd like to like to talk about some legislation that I think is 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:29.950 important that's sitting in the House. The simple and direct language of our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not 00:01:29.960 --> 00:01:38.950 be infringed. There are no qualifiers on who may keep arms, what types of arms they may keep or for what purposes and it certainly doesn't say that the right 00:01:38.960 --> 00:01:48.310 to bear arms is about trivial matters like deer hunting or skeet shooting. The Second Amendment exists for one clear reason, defense. For the defense of 00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:57.430 one's home, one's family and one's community. For the defense of liberty and safety, not only from a lone assailant, but from the whole of 00:01:57.440 --> 00:02:05.950 tyrannical government. That is why we have the Second Amendment. Our founders understood the greatest risk to liberty are not always found outside a nation's 00:02:05.960 --> 00:02:15.830 borders, even though we go looking for fights abroad sometimes too frequently, but oftentimes from within when a corrupt and dangerous few grow too ambitious and 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:25.990 attempt to subjugate the masses. And when such tyranny arises, snakes prefer the path of least resistance. They prefer a population 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:35.190 that is vulnerable and as George Mason reminded us in 1788, to disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. 00:02:35.200 --> 00:02:44.630 History's riddled with oppressive states that stripped and abused their own people to keep riches for the assaulting cabal and in every instance before those 00:02:44.640 --> 00:02:52.750 snakes bit, they first took away the guns. Whether it was Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro or Chavez, gun confiscations 00:02:52.760 --> 00:03:02.110 and restrictions came first, then the infringement of all the other liberties and in many cases millions were killed by their own governments. It's not by 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:10.430 the grace that America has averted similar atrocities. It's because of our Constitution's design. As Madison wrote 00:03:10.440 --> 00:03:20.630 in Federalist 46, the advantage of being armed with the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation 00:03:20.640 --> 00:03:30.310 forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, a barrier against tyranny and oppression by a ruling class. To this point, I think it's I think it's 00:03:30.320 --> 00:03:40.390 incumbent upon us to advance legislation that will protect the Second Amendment here. We've sworn an oath to the Constitution to protect it from enemies 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:50.270 from within and abroad. Uh, four pieces of legislation that I've sponsored in the House that I want to talk about today, one is to repeal the Gun Free School 00:03:50.280 --> 00:04:00.470 Zone Act. 94% of mass public shootings happen in gun-free zones and so we shouldn't be advertising as the default that our 00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:10.430 children are sitting ducks that are unprotected. In the states and school zones where they have allowed the carrying of firearms, there have been no 00:04:10.440 --> 00:04:18.470 such catastrophes. The other uh, bill that's easy to explain is a bill to allow 18 to 21-year-olds to buy handguns from a 00:04:18.480 --> 00:04:26.990 federal federally licensed dealer. I think it's somewhat ridiculous that you can be conscripted to serve your country in a 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:37.430 war, you can be 18, 19 or 20 and forced into service to fight for your country, but you can't defend your own family with a handgun that you bought at a 00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:45.990 licensed dealer. So, we should repeal this federal restriction. Uh, a piece of legislation that's coming up in the House next month, which I think 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:55.710 is very important, is to report some of the data that we collect in the NICS database. When you go to buy a gun, you fill out a form 4473. It's that gold 00:04:55.720 --> 00:05:05.110 form and they collect data on there that they never report and what we've discovered through my friend John Lott, who's an economist, a statistician and 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:14.590 an author, is that there's inherent racism in the NICS background check system. Because it's sloppy and they check only phonetically similar names, 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:22.950 when you go to purchase a gun, you can be deprived of purchasing that gun and the appeals process can get messy to prove you're not the same person that 00:05:22.960 --> 00:05:33.070 they think is the person who's prohibited. It turns out if you're a black American or Hispanic, you're far more likely to share a name phonetically 00:05:33.080 --> 00:05:42.390 with somebody who's a prohibited person who's been convicted of a crime of a year that has a punishment of a year or more. In fact, you're probably twice as 00:05:42.400 --> 00:05:51.070 likely if you're Hispanic to be falsely denied the purchase of a handgun and three times as likely if you're black to be denied the purchase of a gun at a 00:05:51.080 --> 00:05:59.390 dealership at a dealer. So, uh, this bill that's coming up in the House would just and by the way, it's passed with 00:05:59.400 --> 00:06:07.550 uh, unanimously in our Judiciary Committee. Democrats and Republicans have both voted for it. Simply requires the DOJ to publish that data, not of 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:16.350 individuals, but in the aggregate of the denials by sex and also by race or ethnicity. Finally, uh, the bill that 00:06:16.360 --> 00:06:26.390 I'm most excited about is the National Constitutional Carry Act and Senator Lee has that here in the Senate now and some of you are sponsors of that. I thank 00:06:26.400 --> 00:06:36.030 you. Um, several years ago, there was legislation advanced to force reciprocity among the states for concealed carry permits. Now, that made 00:06:36.040 --> 00:06:46.910 sense at the time because in most of the states you needed a permit to carry a firearm, but 29 states now recognize that the right to keep and bear arms 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:55.550 should not require permission from your government to bear those arms and so they have permit permitless carry. I've advanced a bill, the National 00:06:55.560 --> 00:07:04.310 Constitutional Carry Act that would extend that to all 50 states and the territories. Now, you may ask, well, does that violate the 10th Amendment? 00:07:04.320 --> 00:07:14.030 Are you infringing on state rights? Well, thanks to the McDonald case in 2010, which came two years after the Heller case. See, Heller was decided in 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:22.950 DC, so it didn't impinge on the states, but the McDonald case versus Chicago incorporated the Second Amendment to the 00:07:22.960 --> 00:07:31.150 states. So, the states are constrained by the Second Amendment. So, no, it does not violate the 10th Amendment to tell the states that you must follow the 00:07:31.160 --> 00:07:41.030 right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment. So, I'd love to see some action on that here in the Senate. With that, um, I'll return to my 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:49.190 prepared remarks and close. When we look to our Constitution, remember it's a document by our people 00:07:49.200 --> 00:07:57.390 for the purpose of constraining our government, not the other way around. The Second Amendment is the ultimate check on our government. Any attack on 00:07:57.400 --> 00:08:07.390 those core tenets, whether it's the Second Amendment, the First Amendment or the Fourth Amendment or any other provision of our Constitution is dangerous and wrong and one does not 00:08:07.400 --> 00:08:15.990 need to look too far back in history to find examples of why. And I'll I'll close with these words from Patrick Henry. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:26.310 Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches the jewel. The great object is that every man be armed. Thank you very much 00:08:26.320 --> 00:08:30.000 for allowing me to testify today.