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GUN CONTROL BILLS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. Greene) for 5 minutes.
Mrs. GREENE of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition of gun control bills.
I rise today in support of our Second Amendment, the greatest freedom that we have as Americans, and a right that people all over the world wish that they had.
The Second Amendment reads: ``A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.''
H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446, both gun control bills, infringe on the people's right to keep and bear arms. We must stand up and stop the constant flow of gun control bills that constantly come out of this House. The American people have these freedoms for a very good purpose.
You see, the right to defend oneself is something that should never require us to be on a list. It should never require us to pay a tax. It should never require us to wait to be able to purchase a firearm to defend ourselves. It should never require rules or shame or condemnation from another American.
Right now, we are in a time where people are being shamed just for being a gun owner. Our government is constantly pursuing legal gun owners and making them out to be the bad guy.
Take, for example, in Atlanta, Georgia, my home State, just this past weekend at the NBA All-Star game, there were 13 shootings. These were all illegal shootings. None of those criminals signed up for a background check for their guns. None of those criminals considered that they needed a waiting period before they used their firearm. And none of those criminals cared about any of the laws on the books when they shot people.
Criminals don't care about gun laws. Criminals just don't care. They're going to commit their crime. They are going to murder someone, whether they have a legal gun, an illegal gun, a knife, a hammer, you name it. They are criminals. They break the law.
H.R. 8 requires a background check on gun owners. Everyone knows that for a background check, you have to submit all your information to get that background check done. It is actually nothing but a national gun registry list. And everyone knows that a registry list leads to gun confiscation later on. This is what gun owners know. This is what gun owners fear of a government that may become too tyrannical, which I would like to remind you is the whole reason why we have the Second Amendment in the first place. It is because our brave men and women who founded our country fought against a tyrannical government that was coming to take away their guns.
This is not what we want in America. We never want a war on our land, but we also don't want a government that becomes too controlling and overbearing and takes away the rights of gun owners.
{time} 1030
You see, gun rights are American rights, and gun rights are women's rights. Yesterday was International Women's Day. It is a wonderful thing to be an American woman. We are the freest women in the world. For us to be able to have the right to own a firearm and protect ourselves when someone is trying to hurt us is a great right.
Madam Speaker, there is a woman named Carol Bowne, who was stabbed to death outside of her New Jersey home by her ex-boyfriend. Carol knew her best chance of defending herself from a violent ex-boyfriend was a gun, not a piece of paper, not a 911 call. She knew her ex-boyfriend was violent and wanted to kill her, so she went to buy a gun.
But you know what? It was a background check, the rules of the State, the oppressive gun rules of that State, that led to her being stabbed to death because it delayed her ability to buy a gun and defend herself from an ex-boyfriend that was out of his mind.
Carol Bowne had a restraining order. She was following the law against her boyfriend, so she had a restraining order. She had reported him to the police, but he still came to her house and killed her in the driveway. She was waiting for her approval of her gun permit--
literally, what we are talking about with H.R. 8, background checks, and H.R. 1446, a 20-day waiting period.
She was following the law, and she still got stabbed to death and murdered by her ex-boyfriend. You see, she had gone to the township police department 2 days before her death to check on the status of her languishing application.
Another indication of her fear of her out-of-his-mind ex-boyfriend, she had installed surveillance cameras around her home. Guess what? Those cameras recorded----
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 44
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