[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PROTECTING AMERICA FROM ASSAULT WEAPONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-52
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-091 WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair
ZOE LOFGREN, California DOUG COLLINS, Georgia, Ranking
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas Member
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr., VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
Georgia F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida Wisconsin
KAREN BASS, California STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island KEN BUCK, Colorado
ERIC SWALWELL, California JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas
TED LIEU, California MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland MATT GAETZ, Florida
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
J. LUIS CORREA, California TOM McCLINTOCK, California
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
LUCY MCBATH, Georgia BEN CLINE, Virginia
GREG STANTON, Arizona KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
BRENDAN BELAIR, Minority Staff Director
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME, TERRORISM, AND HOMELAND SECURITY
KAREN BASS, California, Chair
VAL DEMINGS, Florida, Vice-Chair
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas, Ranking
LUCY MCBATH, Georgia Member
TED DEUTCH, Florida F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana Wisconsin
HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
TED LIEU, California TOM MCCLINTOCK, California
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
DEBBIE MUCARSEL-POWELL, Florida GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
STEVEN COHEN, Tennessee BEN CLINE, Virgina
W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
JOE GRAUPENSPERGER, Chief Counsel
JASON CERVENAK, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Page
OPENING STATEMENTS
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, and Chair, of the House, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 1
Oral Testimony................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Doug Collins, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Georgia, and Ranking Member of the House, Committee on
the Judiciary.................................................. 39
Oral Testimony................................................. 39
WITNESSES
Honorable Nan Whaley, Mayor of Dayton, Ohio...................... 5
Oral Testimony................................................. 5
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Alejandro Rios-Tovar, M.D., Texas Tech University Health Sciences
Center, El Paso................................................ 8
Oral Testimony................................................. 8
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
Rashall Brackney, Chief of Police, Charlottesville, Virginia..... 10
Oral Testimony................................................. 10
Prepared Statement............................................. 11
Kristen Rand, Legislative Director, Violence Policy Center....... 12
Oral Testimony................................................. 12
Prepared Statement............................................. 14
Amy Swearer, Senior Legal Policy Analyst, Meese Center for Legal
and Judicial Studies, Heritage Foundation...................... 21
Oral Testimony................................................. 21
Prepared Statement............................................. 22
Dianna Muller, DC Project........................................ 31
Oral Testimony................................................. 31
Prepared Statement............................................. 32
David Chipman, Senior Policy Advisor, Giffords Law Center........ 35
Oral Testimony................................................. 35
Prepared Statement............................................. 36
STATEMENTS, LETTERS, MATERIALS, ARTICLES SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Statement submitted by Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Member of
Congress of New York, the Chair of the House, Committee on the
Judiciary for the record....................................... 3
Letter submitted by Representative David Cicilline a Member of
Congress of Rhode, Island, a Member of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security signed by nearly 150
organizations including Newtown Action Alliance and the Brady
Campaign regarding support for Assault Weapons Ban to the
Committee on the Judiciary for the record...................... 56
Article submitted by Representative David Cicilline a Member of
Congress of Rhode, Island, a Member of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security a report from Violence
Policy Center regarding law enforcement officers slain in the
line of duty, for the record................................... 62
Article submitted by Representative David Cicilline a Member of
Congress of Rhode, Island, a Member of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security regarding American
Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) 2018 study
published in the Journal of Trauma Acute Care Surgery, for the
record......................................................... 66
Article submitted by Representative David Cicilline a Member of
Congress of Rhode, Island, a Member of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security regarding Politico's
Morning Consulting poll supporting an assault weapons ban, for
the record..................................................... 78
Article submitted by Representative David Cicilline a Member of
Congress of Rhode, Island, a Member of the Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security regarding Fox News poll
supporting an assault weapons ban, for the record.............. 84
Statement submitted by Representative Theodore Deutch a Member of
Congress of Florida, a Member of the Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism, and Homeland Security from Jennifer Guttenberg and
Ryan Deutch, for the record.................................... 102
APPENDIX
Changes in U.S. mass shooting deaths associated with the 1994-
2004 federal assault weapons ban: Analysis of Open-Source Date
by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Member of Congress of
Texas, and a Member of the House, Committee on the Judiciary,
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, for
the record..................................................... 134
Statement by Ryan Servaites, March For Our Lives Co-Founder &
Policy Fellow to the Committee on the Judiciary for the record. 135
Letter from Brent J. Cohen, Executive Director, Generation
Progress regarding gun violence prevention, to the Committee on
the Judiciary for the record................................... 138
Friends Committee on National Legislation's (FCNL) regarding gun
violence prevention to the Committee on the Judiciary for the
record......................................................... 163
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) submit Assault Weapons
FAQ to the Committee on the Judiciary for the record........... 164
Violence Policy Center, Black Homicide Victimization in the
United States - An Analysis of 2016 Homicide Date to the
Committee on the Judiciary for the record...................... 167
WOUNDED CITY--A Special Investigation of the Commercial Appeal
Exploring Memphis' Gun Violence Problem to the Committee on the
Judiciary for the record....................................... 181
The Daily Memphian--Memphis brainpower counters attacks of
trauma, distress on adolescents to the Committee on the
Judiciary for the record....................................... 226
Letter from Josh Horwitz, Executive Director, Coalition to Stop
Gun Violence regarding the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019 to
Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Member of Congress of New
York, Chair of the House, Committee on the Judiciary and
Representative, Doug Collins, a Member of Congress of Georgia
and Ranking Member of the House, Committee on the Judiciary for
the record..................................................... 243
Statement by Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) regarding gun
violence crisis to Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Member of
Congress of New York, Chair of the House, Committee on the
Judiciary and Representative, Doug Collins, a Member of
Congress of Georgia and Ranking Member of the House, Committee
on the Judiciary for the record................................ 244
PROTECTING AMERICA FROM ASSAULT WEAPONS
----------
September 25, 2019
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Jerrold Nadler [chairman of
the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee,
Cohen, Johnson of Georgia, Deutch, Bass, Richmond, Cicilline,
Swalwell, Lieu, Raskin, Jayapal, Demings, Correa, Scanlon,
Garcia, Neguse, McBath, Stanton, Dean, Murcarsel-Powell,
Escobar, Collins, Sensenbrenner, Chabot, Gohmert, Jordan, Buck,
Ratcliffe, Johnson of Louisiana, Biggs, McClintock, Lesko,
Reschenthaler, Cline, Armstrong, and Steube.
Staff present: David Greengrass, Senior Counsel; John Doty,
Senior Advisor; Moh Sharma, Member Services and Outreach
Advisor; Julian Gerson, Staff Assistant; Ben Hernandez-Stern,
Counsel, Crime Subcommittee; Joe Graupensperger, Chief Counsel,
Crime Subcommittee; Veronica Eligan, Professional Staff Member,
Crime Subcommittee; Brendan Blair, Minority Staff Director;
Robert Parmiter, Minority Deputy Staff Director/Chief Counsel;
Jon Ferro, Minority Parliamentarian/General Counsel; Jason
Cervenak, Minority Chief Counsel, Crime Subcommittee; and Erica
Barker, Minority Chief Legislative Clerk.
Chair Nadler. The House Committee on the Judiciary will
come to order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Committee at any time.
We welcome everyone to this morning's hearing on Protecting
America From Assault Weapons. I will now recognize myself for
an opening statement.
Assault weapons have been repeatedly used as weapons of
weapons of deadly violence on our citizens. In just the last 2
years, Las Vegas, Parkland, Pittsburgh, Poway, Gilroy, Midland,
and Odessa have all seen horrible shootings, mass shooting, at
the hands of gunmen with assault weapons. And only last month,
we added El Paso and Dayton to the list of communities
shattered by mass violence perpetrated by gunmen with assault
weapons.
Today's hearing is about whether America will tolerate
weapons of war on our street and in our neighborhoods. Simply
put, civilian assault weapons are just semi-automatic versions
of military weapons. They have no purpose but to kill as many
people as possible as quickly as possible. By allowing killers
to rapidly and repeatedly fire bullets at their human targets
without stopping to reload, assault weapons are designed for
maximum bloodshed.
Although 7 States plus the District of Columbia have passed
laws addressing assault weapons, these State laws have proven
too easy to evade. This is why I support a national ban on
assault weapons. For example, despite California's ban on
assault weapons, a man was able to drive across the border in
Nevada to buy an assault weapon, a 75-round high-capacity
magazine, plus 5 40-round magazines, and use this weapon to
kill 3 people and wound 17 others in a matter of minutes at the
Gilroy Garlic Festival. A gunman intent on killing, whether the
target is one person or many, can hop over State lines, buy a
gun, and return to kill others. We must examine this dangerous
problem and how to address it.
The 1994 Federal assault weapons ban, which expired in
2004, was a watershed event that offers an important guide for
our efforts today. Recent studies of the effectiveness of that
law have shown that mass shooting fatalities were 70 percent
less likely to occur compared to the periods before and after
the ban. Another study found that the Federal assault weapons
ban was associated with a 25 percent drop in gun massacres and
a 40 percent drop in fatalities.
The ban, however, was not without its shortcomings. During
the ban, the gun industry, as usual, putting profits over
morality, boasted of its ability to modify various assault
weapons so that they were technically legal, but were still
deadly instruments of mass killing. Writing of one AK-47 clone,
Gun World magazine crowed, ``In spite of assault weapons
bans''--I'm sorry--``In spite of assault rifle bans, bans on
high-capacity magazines, the rantings of the anti-gun media,
and the rifles and apolitical incorrectness, the Kalashnikov,
in various forms and guises, has flourished. Today they are
probably more models, accessories, and parts to choose from
than ever before,'' thus boasting about how to evade the law, a
law intended to protect human lives. As we consider how best to
address the problem of assault weapons, we must examine the
loopholes in the 1994 law that weakened its effectiveness.
Although the lethal impact of assault weapons is horribly
evident in mass shooting, assault weapons present a far broader
problem. These weapons pose a daily threat to our communities,
whether or not their use in particular instances cause mass
casualties or make national news. They hold particular appeal
to criminals who can wield terror with them, even without
causing loss of life on a wide scale. For too long, the
response in Congress to the daily toll of gun violence in our
streets, in our schools, and in places of worship has been
moments of silence. That has to change.
Earlier this year, this Committee reported, and the House
passed legislation, to expand and improve our background check
system. This Committee recently approved bills to establish
systems for extreme risk protection orders, ban large-capacity
magazines, and prohibit individuals convicted of hate crime
misdemeanors from possessing firearms. We will soon discover
whether the Republican leadership of the Senate is still in
abject fealty to the gun manufacturers or not when they
consider this legislation.
Today's hearing continues the important task of addressing
our shameful national problem of gun violence. Today we will
discuss assault weapons and examine options for dealing with
these particularly dangerous weapons of war. Tomorrow, our
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security will
conduct a hearing concerning community response to gun violence
in our cities. We must take a comprehensive approach to solving
the national crisis of gun violence, an issue that for too long
has been ignored by national leaders. We know that the American
people want us to examine the facts and to find solutions, and
this hearing is an important step towards that goal.
I would like to recognize the survivors and advocates here
today, including those from Newtown, Parkland, March for Our
Lives, and Moms Demand Action. I thank you for your tireless
advocacy. You inspire us all. I thank our witnesses for
appearing today, and I look forward to their testimony. I
understand that the Ranking Member is on his way. We will
proceed to witness testimony at this time, and I will recognize
the Ranking Member for his opening statement when he arrives.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record.
[The information follows:]
STATEMENT OF CHAIR JERROLD NADLER
Assault weapons have been repeatedly used as weapons of
deadly violence on our citizens. In just the last two years,
Las Vegas; Parkland; Pittsburgh; Poway; Gilroy; Midland; and
Odessa have all seen horrific shootings at the hands of a
gunman with assault weapons. Only last month, we added El Paso
and Dayton to the list of communities shattered by mass
violence perpetrated by a gunman armed with assault weapons.
Today's hearing is about whether America will tolerate
weapons of war on our streets and in our neighborhoods.
Simply put, civilian assault weapons are just semiautomatic
versions of military weapons. They have no purpose but to kill
as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. By allowing
killers to rapidly and repeatedly fire bullets at their human
targets, without stopping to reload, assault weapons are
designed for maximum bloodshed.
Although seven states plus the District of Columbia have
passed laws addressing assault weapons, these State laws have
proven too easy to evade. This is one reason I support a
national ban on assault weapons. For example, despite
California's ban on assault weapons, a man was able to drive
across the border into Nevada to buy an assault weapon, a 75-
round high capacity magazine, plus five 40-round magazines, and
use this weapon to kill 3 people and wound 17 others in a
matter of minutes at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
A gunman intent on killing, whether the target is one
person or many, can hop over State lines, buy a gun, and return
to kill others. We must examine this dangerous problem and how
to address it.
The 1994 federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in
2004, was a watershed event that offers an important guide for
our efforts today. Recent studies of the effectiveness of that
law have showed that mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less
likely to occur compared to the periods before and after the
ban. Another study found that the federal assault weapons ban
was associated with a 25 percent drop in gun massacres and a 40
percent drop in fatalities.
The ban, however, was not without its shortcomings. During
the ban, the gun industry--putting profits over morality--
boasted of its ability to modify various assault weapons so
that they were technically legal, but were still deadly
instruments of mass killing.
Writing of one AK-47 clone, Gun World magazine crowed, ``In
spite of assault rifle bans, bans on high capacity magazines,
the rantings of the anti-gun media and the rifle's innate
political incorrectness, the Kalashnikov, in various forms and
guises, has flourished. Today there are probably more models,
accessories and parts to choose from than ever before.'' As we
consider how best to address the problem of assault weapons, we
must examine the loopholes in the 1994 law that weakened its
effectiveness. 1Although the lethal impact of assault weapons
is horrifically evident in mass shootings, assault weapons
present a far broader problem. These weapons pose a daily
threat to our communities, whether or not their use in
particular instances cause mass casualties or make national
news. They hold particular appeal to criminals, who can wield
terror with them, even without causing loss of life on a wide
scale.
For too long, the response in Congress to the daily toll of
gun violence on our streets, in our schools, and in places of
worship has been moments of silence. That has changed. Earlier
this year, this Committee reported. and the House passed,
legislation to expand and improve our background check system,
and this Committee recently approved bills to establish systems
for extreme risk protection orders, ban large capacity
magazines, and prohibit individuals convicted of hate crime
misdemeanors from possessing firearms.
Today's hearing continues the important task of addressing
our shameful national problem of gun violence. Today, we will
discuss assault weapons and examine options for dealing with
these particularly dangerous weapons of war. And tomorrow, our
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security will
conduct a hearing concerning community responses to gun
violence in our cities.
We must take a comprehensive approach to solving the
national crisis of gun violence, an issue that, for too long,
has been ignored by national leaders. We know that the American
people want us to examine the facts and to find solutions, and
this hearing is an important step towards that goal.
I thank our witnesses for appearing today, and I look
forward to their testimony.
Chair Nadler. I will now introduce today's witnesses.
The Honorable Nan Whaley is the mayor of Dayton, Ohio.
Since the mass shooting in Dayton this past August, Mayor
Whaley has been a leading advocate for gun safety legislation.
Before joining city government, Mayor Whaley served on the
Montgomery County Board of Elections and as a deputy to the
Montgomery County auditor. She received her B.A. from the
University of Dayton and her M.P.A. from Wright State
University.
Dr. Alejandro Rios-Tovar--did I get that right?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Yes.
Chair Nadler. Dr. Alejandro Rios-Tovar is a surgeon at the
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso. After
the mass shooting attacks at a Walmart in El Paso, Dr. Rios-
Tovar treated victims of the shooting. He received his M.D.
from the University of Texas School of Medicine at San Antonio.
Dr. RaShall Brackney--did I get that right?
Chief Brackney. RaShall.
Chair Nadler. RaShall. Dr. RaShall Brackney is the chief of
police of Charlottesville, Virginia. Previously Dr. Brackney
served for 30 years with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police and
served as the chief of police of the George Washington
University. She was also the first African-American woman to
oversee a special operations division. Dr. Brackney received
her B.A. and M.A. from Carnegie-Melon University and her Ph.D.
from Robert Morris University. She is also a graduate of the
FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
Kristen Rand is the legislative director for the Violence
Policy Center. Before joining the Violence Policy Center in
1994, Ms. Rand served as the counsel with Consumers Union. Ms.
Rand received her B.A. from the University of Southern
California and her J.D. from George Washington University.
Am Swearer is a senior legal policy analyst in the Meese
Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage
Foundation. Previously she held positions with the Charles Koch
Institute and the Lancaster County, Nebraska Public Defender's
Office. She received her Bachelor of Science in criminal
justice and her J.D. from the University of Nebraska.
Dianna Muller is the founder of the DC Project, a
grassroots initiative to bring one woman from every State to
Washington, DC each year to meet with legislators on behalf of
gun owners. She is also a co-host of Shooting Gallery on the
Outdoor Channel. Previously she served for 22 years in the
Tulsa Police Department. Ms. Muller received a Bachelor of
Science in criminal justice and psychology from the University
of Central Missouri.
David Chipman is the senior policy advisor at Giffords Law
Center and is a member of the Firearms Committee of the
International Association of Chiefs of Police. Prior to
assuming his current position, Mr. Chipman served for 25 years
as a special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms, and Explosives. Mr. Chipman received his B.A. from
American University and his master's in management from Johns
Hopkins University.
We welcome all our distinguished witnesses, and we thank
them for participating in today's hearing. Now, if you would
please, I will begin by swearing you in. Raise your right hand.
[Laughter.]
Chair Nadler. Do you swear or affirm under penalty of
perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and
correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief,
so help you God?
[A chorus of ayes.]
Chair Nadler. You may be seated and thank you. Let the
record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Please note that each of your written statements will be
entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, I ask
that you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. To help you
stay within that time, there is a timing light on your table.
When the light switches from green to yellow, you have 1 minute
to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it
signals your 5 minutes have expired.
Mayor Whaley, you may begin.
TESTIMONY OF HONORABLE NAN WHALEY
Ms. Whaley. Thank you, Chair Nadler. On August 4th at 1:00
a.m., Dayton's Oregon District was bustling like it usually is
with a diverse group of friends and neighbors enjoying a night
out. People hopped between bars and restaurants as last call
approached. Others waited in line at a popular taco truck for a
late-night snack. That all changed in an instant.
At 1:05 a.m., a young man armed with an AR-15 pistol
variant walked down an alley between two bars and began
spraying high-velocity rounds into the crowd. He then turned
down a crowded street as people tried to run for safety.
Friends pulled each other into doorways to try to escape
falling bullets. One man threw his girlfriend to the ground and
covered her body with his own. People literally ran out of
their shoes. Less than 1 minute later, nine people were dead,
and 17 others had been shot. Dozens more were injured in the
commotion. 30-two seconds. In just 32 seconds, 26 people had
been shot, nine families had lost loved ones, and dozens more
would never be the same.
The entire incident was over in half as much time as I have
been speaking to you so far today. In those 32 seconds, the
shooter's weapon did exactly what it was designed to do: kill
or injure as many people as possible in the shortest amount of
time. It was a weapon designed to inflict maximum damage to
human beings. It left a trail of destruction, not on some
foreign battlefield, but down a historic brick street in
Dayton, Ohio.
I visited the crime scene the morning after the shooting,
and the thing I remember most clearly is the smell of bleach. A
street sweeper was being used to try to clean the road, and men
in HAZMAT suits were scrubbing the sidewalks. The meat still
sat on the grill of the taco truck. Little yellow placards
showing where bullet casings were found looked like they had
been scattered without thought. I was in a place that was both
completely familiar and completely foreign. The shooting
occurred nearly 2 months ago, but our sidewalks are still
stained after even numerous power washes, many buildings and
street signs still have bullet holes in them, and these are
just the physical scars left by the shooting.
Young people who were in the district that night talk about
their new fear of crowds. Bartenders in the neighborhood are
consumed with anxiety at the sound of sirens. Neighbors dread
the sound of fireworks after being awakened by gunfire. Our
whole city is hurting, all because a young man with a history
of violent ideas could get his hands on a weapon capable of
such destruction. And yet we are lucky. Just 32 seconds after
the shooting began, Dayton police neutralized the gunman. He
was killed as he attempted to enter a bar where hundreds of
people were hiding. If he shot 26 people on the street in 32
seconds, what could he have done in that bar?
We are so lucky that 7 Dayton police officers were less
than a block away when the shooting began. We are so lucky that
these officers relied on their training and their courage and
ran directly into the gunfire. I have thought a lot about the
bravery of the Dayton police and the impossible situation that
confronted them. Why do we ask our first responders to face
down weapons that can do so much damage in so little time?
Our city has honored these heroes. The White House has
honored these heroes. But if we are serious about honoring and
thanking our brave first responders, the best thing we can do
is make sure they are never put in this situation again. Police
should not have to confront a weapon that can kill nine people
in 32 seconds. No one should.
The evening after the shooting, thousands of people
gathered for a vigil on the same street where nine of their
neighbors had died only hours earlier. When Governor Mike
DeWine took the stage, hundreds of people shouted in
frustration, ``Do something,'' ``Do something.'' The massacre
that happened in Dayton and has happened in too many
communities across this country demands a response. We must
ensure that no one American, neither a young person on a casual
night out nor a police officer on patrol, has to face down
weapons capable of so much destruction.
I'm here today on behalf of the citizens of Dayton and
mayors across the country to ask you to keep weapons like this
off of our streets. I'm here to ask you to do something. Thank
you, Chair.
[The statement of Ms. Whaley follows:]
STATEMENT OF NAN WHALEY
On Saturday, August 4th at 1:00AM, Dayton's Oregon District
was bustling like it usually is with a diverse group of friends
and neighbors enjoying a night out. People hopped between bars
and restaurants as last call approached. Others waited in line
at a popular taco truck for a late-night snack.
That all changed in an instant.
At 1:05 a.m., a young man armed with an AR-15 pistol
variant walked down an alley between two bars and began
spraying high-capacity rounds into the crowd. He then turned
down a crowded street as people tried to run for safety.
Friends pulled each other into doorways to try to escape flying
bullets. One man threw his girlfriend to the ground and covered
her body with his own. People literally ran out of their shows.
Less than a minute later, 9 people were dead, and 17 others
had been shot. Dozens more were injured in the commotion.
Thirty-two seconds. In just 32 seconds 26 people had been shot.
Nine families had lost loved ones and dozens more will never
been the same.
The entire incident was over in half as much time as I have
been speaking to you so far today.
In those 32 seconds, the shooter's weapon did exactly what
it was designed to do--kill or injure as many people as
possible in the shortest amount of time. It was a weapon
designed to inflict maximum damage to human beings. It left a
trail of destruction not on some foreign battlefield, but down
a historic brick street in Dayton, Ohio. These shootings are
more than just numbers and statistics.
The shooting occurred nearly two months ago, but our
sidewalks are still stained even after numerous power washes.
Many buildings and street signs still have bullet holes in
them.
I visited the crime scene the morning after the shooting,
and the thing I remember mostly clearly is the smell of the
bleach. A street sweeper was being used to try to clean the
road and men in hazmat suits were scrubbing the sidewalks. The
meat still sat on the grill of the taco truck. Little yellow
placards showing where bullet casings were found looked like
they had been scattered without thought. I was in a place that
was both completely familiar, and completely foreign. I have
seen crime scenes before. I have never seen anything like this.
These are just the physical scars left by the shooting. In
the weeks since, it has become very apparent that far more
people are feeling the effects of this violence than those with
physical injuries.
Young people who were in the District that night talk about
their new fear of crowds. Bartenders in the neighborhood are
consumed with anxiety at the sound of sirens. Neighbors dread
the sound of fireworks after being awakened by gunfire.
Our whole city is hurting. All because a young man with a
history of violent ideas could get his hands on a weapon
capable of such destruction.
Yet, we are lucky. Just 32 seconds after the shooting
began, Dayton Police neutralized the gunman. He was killed as
he attempted to enter a bar where hundreds of people were
hiding. If he shot 26 people on the street in 32 seconds, what
could he have done in that bar?
We are so lucky that seven Dayton police officers were less
than a block away when the shooting began. We are so lucky that
these officers relied on their training and their courage and
ran directly into the gunfire.
I have thought a lot about the bravery of the Dayton Police
and the impossible situation that confronted them. Why do we
ask our first responders to face down weapons that can do so
much damage in so little time?
Our city has honored these heroes. The White House has
honored these heroes. People from Dayton and around the country
have expressed their gratitude.
If we are serious about honoring and thanking our brave
first responders, the best thing we can do is make sure they
are never put in this situation again.
Police should not have to confront a weapon that can kill
nine people in 32 seconds.
No one should.
The evening after the shooting, thousands of people
gathered for a vigil on the same street where nine of their
neighbors had died only hours earlier. When Governor Mike
DeWine took the stage, hundreds of people shouted in
frustration, ``Do something.''
Do something.
What happened in Dayton and in too many other communities
around this country--demands a response. We must ensure that no
American--neither a young person on a casual night out nor a
police officer on patrol--has to face down weapons capable of
so much destruction.
I'm here on behalf of the citizens of Dayton to ask you to
keep weapons like this off of our streets. I'm here to ask you
to do something.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Dr. Tovar?
TESTIMONY OF ALEJANDRO RIOS-TOVAR, M.D.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Chair Nadler, Vice Chair Scanlon, Ranking
Member Collins, and distinguished Members of the House
Judiciary Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to come
before you and to participate in this hearing.
I've been a trauma surgeon and the associate trauma medical
director at the University Medical Center in El Paso for the
past 2 years. On the Saturday morning of August, the 3rd, I had
just finished a typical 30-hour shift at the hospital with a
usual gall bladder surgery. I picked up McDonald's on the way
home, looking forward to eating, getting some sleep until
Sunday morning when I'd have to do it all over again.
Just after I got home at 10:55 a.m., I received a text
message from my chairman of surgery who was out of town:
``Active shooter, Walmart. Unknown number of victims.''
Honestly, I didn't think much of it. I had received an active
shooter alert the month earlier, and the SWAT team only brought
in one victim at the time. Dr. Susan McLean, my mentor and a
trauma surgeon at the hospital, could surely handle this. A
text 2 minutes later was sent to all surgeons in our group:
``If anybody is in El Paso, go to the hospital. There's an
active shooter, and we'll get at least 4 or 5 victims.'' By the
time this text was sent, I would learn later, the shooting was
over in just about 20 minutes, and more than 20 people were
killed, more than 20 were injured, and countless lives would be
changed.
I ran red lights and sped to the hospital. I knew that most
of these patients would require immediate surgery, and I was
trying to coordinate who would be there to help operate. By the
time I arrived, each of our six trauma bays had patients. Each
needed surgery. Dr. McLean was already in the operating room
with one of them. The one that drew my attention was a patient
with a CPR in progress. She had been talking just a few minutes
earlier, and now from her shoulder wound, she was lifeless. My
resident and I quickly and methodically cut open her chest to
begin manual cardiac compressions. Three liters of blood
immediately spilled to the floor. After working for several
minutes, I knew our efforts were futile, and I had to pronounce
the time of death just 10 minutes after I had arrived to the
hospital.
The look of disappointment in my resident's eyes ate at me,
but I couldn't process that now. We had more to do. I'm not a
military surgeon, but what I saw looked like a war zone. Small
gunshot wounds in the legs amounted to huge areas of cavitation
and exit wounds larger than a grapefruit. I had never seen
anything like this before. How could a firearm create this type
of destruction?
The next woman I treated was calmer than the rest. She had
a third of her pelvis shattered into dozens of pieces. Multiple
holes in her large and small intestines were too extensive to
be repaired. In damage control surgery, decisions had to be
made to remove parts of intestines instead of sewing the holes
closed when there are more pressing issues to be addressed. In
this case, it was clear none of the intestine could be
salvaged. We packed it with temporary dressing when she was
stabilized and planned to return her to surgery in a day or two
to reassess for any missed injuries.
I have treated countless patients with gunshot wounds from
small firearms. In those cases, sometimes it's even difficult
to find the holes because how small they are and the clean-cut
appearance that looks like a pencil made them. Here, it was not
so. We had 14 patients come in in the span of 34 minutes. The
other main hospital in town received 11 patients. Seven of our
patients went straight to the OR for surgery in that single
hour, and most had to return to the operating room several more
times. And their journey is still not done. In the next few
months, temporary colostomies, multiple orthopedic type of
procedures will have to be re-performed, and reversed, and
closed.
In the aftermath, 22 people lost their lives that day. We
did save 13 out of the 14 patients that arrived to us, but that
first patient haunts me every night. I wish I could've done
more, and I blame myself for her death. I saw her autopsy
recently to try and get some closure. She was protecting her
child, and so she was actually shot in the back and through her
shoulder. She had a hole the size of a baseball at the top of
her lung. Her subclavian vessels were essentially nonexistent.
If this injury had been caused by a small firearm, she may have
had a chance at survival, but there was absolutely nothing I
could do to fix that kind of devastating injury.
I hope that she died knowing that she protected her child
from the same fate. Thank you, Chair.
[The statement of Dr. Rios-Tovar follows:]
STATEMENT OF ALEJANDRO RIOS TOVAR, MD
Chair Nadler, Vice Chair Scanlon, Ranking Member Collins,
and distinguished Members of the House Judiciary Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to come before you today to
participate in this hearing.
I have been a trauma surgeon at University Medical Center
of El Paso for the past two years. On the Saturday morning of
August 3rd, I had just finished a typical 30-hour shift at the
hospital with the usual gallbladder surgery. I had picked up
some McDonald's on the way home and was looking forward to
eating and going to sleep until Sunday morning when I would be
back at it again. Just after I got home at 10:55 a.m., I
received a text message from my Chair of Surgery who was out of
town: ``Active Shooter--Walmart/unknown number of victims.''
Honestly, I didn't think much of it; I had an active shooter
alert the month earlier and the SWAT team brought in only one
victim at the time. Susan McLean, my mentor and the trauma
surgeon in the hospital, could surely handle this. A text two
minutes later was sent to all surgeons in our group: ``If
anyone is in El Paso, go to the hospital. There is an active
shooter and we will get at least four or five victims.'' By the
time this was sent, I would learn later, the shooting was over
in just about 20 minutes, more than 20 people were killed, more
than 20 injured, and countless lives would be changed.
I ran red lights and sped to the hospital. I knew that most
of these patients would require immediate surgery, and I was
trying to coordinate who would be there to help operate. By the
time I arrived, each of our six trauma bays had patients, each
needing surgery. Dr. McLean was already in the operating room
with one. The one that drew my attention was a patient with CPR
in progress. She had been talking just minutes before, and now
from a shoulder wound, she was lifeless. My resident and I
quickly and methodically cut open her chest to begin manual
cardiac compressions. Three liters of blood immediately spilled
to the floor. After working for several minutes, I knew our
efforts were futile and I had to pronounce the time of death;
just ten minutes after I had arrived to the hospital. The look
of disappointment in my resident's eyes ate at me; but I
couldn't process that now. We had more to do.
I am not a military surgeon, but what I saw looked like a
war zone. Small gunshot wounds in legs amounted to huge areas
of cavitation with exit wounds larger than grapefruit. I had
never seen anything like this before. How could a firearm
create this type of destruction? The next woman I treated was
calmer than the rest. She had a third of her pelvis shattered
into dozens of pieces. Multiple holes in her large and small
intestine were too extensive to be repaired. In damage control
surgery, decisions have to be made to remove parts of intestine
instead of sewing the holes closed when there are more pressing
injuries to be addressed. In this case, it was clear that none
of that intestine could be salvaged. We packed with a temporary
dressing once she stabilized and planned to return to surgery
in a day to reassess for any missed injuries.
I have treated countless patients with gunshot wounds from
small firearms; in those cases, sometimes it is difficult to
even find the holes because of the clean-cut appearance that
looks like a pencil made the hole. Here, not so. We had 14
patients come in the span of 34 minutes. The other main
hospital received 11 patients. Seven of our patients went to
the OR for surgery in that hour. Most had to return to the
operating room several more times. Their journey is not done.
In the next few months, temporary colostomies and the like will
have to be reversed and closed.
In the aftermath, 22 people lost their lives that day. We
did save 13 of the 14 patients that arrived to us. That first
patient haunts me every night. I wish I could have done more
and I blame myself for her death. I saw her autopsy recently to
try to get some closure. She was protecting her child, so she
was actually shot in the back and out her shoulder. She had a
hole the size of a baseball at the top of her lung. Her
subclavian vessels were essentially nonexistent. If this injury
had been caused by a smaller firearm, she may have had a chance
at survival. There was absolutely nothing I could do to fix
that kind of devastating injury. I hope that she died knowing
that she protected her child from the same fate.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Chief Brackney?
TESTIMONY OF RASHALL BRACKNEY
Chief Brackney. Committee Chair Representative Jerrold
Nadler, Ranking Member Representative Collins, and Members of
the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, I
bring you greetings on behalf of the executive board and
Members of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement
Executives, NOBLE.
As you know, my name is Dr. RaShall Brackney. I am a member
of NOBLE and the chief of police for the Charlottesville Police
Department in Charlottesville, Virginia, and all that that
brings with it. It is an honor for NOBLE to provide written
testimony on the topic of Protecting America from Assault
Weapons.
NOBLE is very concerned about the level of gun violence in
the United States, and specifically the correlation between
violence and the proliferation of assault weapons and high-
capacity ammunition magazines. It is our organization's opinion
that violence, particularly gun violence, is a public health
issue. As with all public health issues, it demands a
comprehensive, nonjudgmental, pragmatic, evidence-based
approach to saving lives and reducing injury.
NOBLE, along with other organizations, such as the National
Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, of which
we are a member, is committed to addressing the pervasive
nature of gun violence and its horrific impact on communities
across America. Specifically, firearm-related injuries and
deaths, to include homicides, suicides, and accidental
shootings involving assault weapons, is unacceptable and
demands immediate attention. To be clear, NOBLE defines assault
weapons as ``semi-automatic guns with a high-capacity
ammunition magazine designed for military use.'' We advocate
for limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines to 10 rounds
and the regulation of new semi-automatic assault weapons.
In 2016, assault weapons accounted for 1 in 4 police
officers killed in the line of duty through gun violence. NOBLE
supported the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use
Protection Act or Federal Assault Weapons Ban--AWB--of 1994,
and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban Reauthorization Act of
2004. We currently support H.R. 8, which is the bipartisan
Background Checks Act of 2018, as does 90 percent of all
Americans.
Assault weapons have been used in many mass shootings, such
as Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida,
the Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting, the Las Vegas Music
Festival Shooting, and in El Paso. We believe the level and
lethality of gun violence directed at police officers and our
communities requires an organized and aggressive response from
policymakers at the Federal, State, and local levels. Elected
officials must commit to closing gaps in the current regulatory
system, including those that enable felons, minors, and other
prohibited persons to access firearms, and those that allow the
trafficking of illegal guns.
Law enforcement plays a central and critical role in
preventing gun violence and solving crime. Effective strategies
for the strict enforcement of laws concerning the illegal
possession, trafficking, and criminal use of firearms are
vital, and need to be supported by data, research, technology,
training, and best practices. Because the public's health and
safety depend on the efforts of law enforcement, agencies must
have resources sufficient to prioritize the protection of
officers and communities against illegal guns and firearm
violence. The crisis of gun violence in our country
necessitates a sustained, coordinated, and collaborative effort
involving citizens, elected officials, law enforcement, and the
entire criminal justice system.
On behalf of the law enforcement leaders of NOBLE, we thank
you for supporting law enforcement and our ability to maintain
public safety while continuing to address the health issue of
gun violence. Our Members stand ready to meet the needs of our
communities and the Nation, and we thank you for the
opportunity for you to do the same.
[The statement of Chief Brackney follows:]
STATEMENT RASHALL BRACKNEY
National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives
(NOBLE)
Committee Chair, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Ranking
Member, Representative Doug Collins, and Members of the U.S.
House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, I bring
you greetings on behalf of the Executive Board and Members of
the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives--
NOBLE.
My name is Dr. RaShall Brackney and I am a member of NOBLE
and the Chief of Police for the Charlottesville Police
Department in Charlottesville, VA. It is an honor for NOBLE to
provide written testimony on the topic of ``Protecting America
from Assault Weapons.''
NOBLE is very concerned about the level of gun violence in
the United States, and specifically the correlation between
violence and the proliferation of assault weapons and high-
capacity ammunition magazines. It is our organization's opinion
that violence--particularly gun violence is a public health
issue. As with all public health issues, it demands a
comprehensive, nonjudgmental, pragmatic, evidence-based
approach to saving lives and reducing injury. NOBLE along with
organizations such as the National Law Enforcement Partnership
to Prevent Gun Violence (of which we are a member) is committed
to addressing the pervasive nature of gun violence and its
horrific impact on communities across America. Specifically,
firearm-related injuries and deaths to include homicides,
suicides, and accidental shootings, involving assault weapons
is unacceptable and demands immediate attention.
To be clear, NOBLE defines assault weapons as semi-
automatic guns with a high- capacity ammunition magazine
designed for military use. We advocate for limiting high-
capacity ammunition magazines to ten rounds and the regulation
of new semi-automatic assault weapons. In 2016, assault weapons
accounted for 1 in 4 police officers killed in the line of duty
through gun violence (Violence Policy Center--February 27,
2018). NOBLE supported the Public Safety and Recreational
Firearms Use Protection Act or Federal Assault Weapons Ban
(AWB) of 1994 and the Federal Assault Weapons Ban
Reauthorization Act of 2004, and we support H.R. 8 (Bipartisan
Background Checks Act of 2019) as does 90% of all Americans.
Assault weapons have been used in many mass shootings such
as Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida,
The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting, The Las Vegas Music
Festival Shooting and in El Paso. We believe the level and
lethality of gun violence directed at police officers and our
communities requires an organized and aggressive response from
policy makers at the federal, state, and local levels. Elected
officials must commit to closing gaps in the current regulatory
system, including those that enable felons, minors, and other
prohibited persons to access firearms, and those that allow the
trafficking of illegal guns.
Law enforcement plays a central and critical role in
preventing gun violence and solving crime. Effective strategies
for the strict enforcement of laws concerning the illegal
possession, trafficking, and criminal use of firearms are
vital, and need to be supported by data, research, technology,
training, and best practices. Because the public's health and
safety depend on the efforts of law enforcement, agencies must
have resources sufficient to prioritize the protection of
officers and communities against illegal guns and firearm
violence. The crisis of gun violence in our country
necessitates a sustained, coordinated, and collaborative effort
involving citizens, elected officials, law enforcement, and the
entire criminal justice system.
On behalf of the law enforcement leaders of NOBLE, thank
you for supporting law enforcement and our ability to maintain
public safety while continuing to address the health issue of
gun violence. Our Members stand ready to meet the needs of our
communities and nation. Thank you again for this opportunity to
provide testimony.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. Ms. Rand.
TESTIMONY OF KRISTEN RAND
Ms. Rand. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members of the
committee, for hearing the views of the Violence Policy Center.
We're a national educational organization working to reduce gun
violence.
Generally, semi-automatic assault weapons are civilian
versions of military assault weapons. Semi-automatic assault
weapons look the same as their military counterparts because
they are virtually identical, save for one feature. Military
assault weapons are machine guns capable of fully automatic
fire.
Assault weapons did not just happen. They were developed to
meet well-defined combat needs. The most significant assault
weapon functional design feature is the ability to accept a
detachable ammunition magazine. The gun industry introduced
semi-automatic versions of military assault weapons to create
and exploit new civilian markets for these deadly weapons. The
gun industry began to aggressively market assault weapons in
the 1980s, and although the gun lobby today argues there's no
such thing as a civilian assault weapon, and now
euphemistically refers to them as ``modern sporting rifles,''
the industry and gun magazines enthusiastically described these
civilian versions as ``assault rifles,'' ``assault pistols,''
and ``military assault weapons'' to boost civilian sales
throughout the 1980s.
The industry's marketing of assault weapons has intensified
as the market for traditional hunting and sporting firearms has
waned. Today's militarized gun industry is focused primarily on
developing and marketing increasingly lethal assault weapons.
The gun industry's marketing campaigns stress that semi-
automatic assault weapons available to civilians are the
equivalent of those used by the military. The industry's
marketing materials are replete with military images and
language. I'll just give you one example from FN's 2019
catalog. ``Our tactical firearms are the stuff of legend. Every
innovation is born in the battlefront, built for the home
front.''
The rise of public mass shootings directly coincides with
the increasing availability of assault weapons and high-
capacity magazines. Prior to the 1980s, the United States very
rarely experienced the trauma of a public mass shooting. That
began to change in 1984 when James Huberty decided he wanted to
go hunting for humans at a McDonald's in San Ysidro,
California. Huberty wielded an Uzi carbine and killed 21 and
wounded 19. Now these assault weapon attacks are coming with
increasing frequency and higher death tolls. The impact of the
industry's intensifying focus on military-style firearms can be
seen in the weapons chosen by today's mass shooters. For
example, the shooter who killed nine and wounded 27 in Dayton
chose an AR-type assault pistol equipped with a stabilizing
brace, a relatively new trend in industry innovation.
A major point I would like to make, given this opportunity,
is that assault weapons are not just about mass shootings. The
threat posed by these weapons is much broader than that, and,
in fact, they pose a significant risk to law enforcement. The
Violence Policy Center performed an analysis of unpublished
information from the FBI and determined that 1 out of 5 law
enforcement officers slain in the line of duty in 2016 and 2017
were killed with assault weapons. In addition, assault weapons
are the clear weapons of choice of cross-border gun traffickers
supplying criminal organizations in Mexico and other Latin
American countries. We have an ongoing project looking at the
firearms seized in the context of these types of trafficking
prosecutions and found that 55 percent of the 6,000 firearms
named in trafficking prosecutions were assault weapons.
Finally, assault weapons are used in street crime, which I'm
sure you'll hear more from law enforcement today.
I just quickly want to address some items with respect to
policy, a ban. The definition must be very clear and something
the industry cannot evade, and we must find a way to grapple
with the grandfathered weapons. Those are the two major flaws
with the 1994 law, and we need those to be addressed. Thank you
for considering my views.
[The statement of Ms. Rand follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. Ms. Swearer?
TESTIMONY OF AMY SWEARER
Ms. Swearer. Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, and
distinguished Members of Congress. My name is Amy Swearer, and
I'm the senior legal policy analyst at the Heritage
Foundation's Ed Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Just as doctors can only recommend an effective treatment
plan if they first form a correct diagnosis based on accurate
assessment of the symptoms, policy analysts and policymakers
must have an accurate understanding of the societal problems
they are seeking to combat. Unfortunately, too many
policymakers appear completely uninformed about basic factual
realities related to guns and gun violence.
Don't misunderstand me. We all want safer communities, but
the characteristics distinguishing so-called assault weapons
from non-assault weapons are not factors like caliber,
lethality, or rate of fire. Proposals to ban scary-looking
features like barrel shrouds or pistol grips are, for all
intents and purposes, proposals to force law-abiding citizens
to own guns that are harder for them to handle, harder to fire
accurately, and more likely to cause them injuries, even when
they are being used for lawful purposes.
Moreover, semi-automatic rifles are not a meaningful
driving factor behind rates of gun violence. Two-thirds of gun
deaths in this country are suicides, but the type of firearm is
essentially irrelevant. With respect to gun crimes, over 90
percent are committed with handguns. Rifles of any kind are
definitively used in only 3 to 4 percent of gun homicides every
year, and an American citizen is four times as likely to be
stabbed to death than they are to be shot to death with a rifle
of any kind.
Despite frequent claims that semi-automatic rifles are the
weapon of choice for mass public shooters, in the last decade,
over half of these shootings have been carried with handguns
alone. On the other hand, semi-automatic rifles, like the AR-
15, are so well suited for defensive action against threats in
a civilian context that the Department of Homeland Security
quite literally designates them as personal defense weapons for
law enforcement officers. It is little wonder then that
millions of law-abiding citizens in this country also choose
these types of semi-automatic rifles as their own personal
defense weapons.
Far from needing to be protected from these rifles, law-
abiding Americans benefit when they are allowed to defend
themselves with them, particularly in situations where they are
outnumbered. Just last week, a homeowner in Rockdale County,
Georgia relied on his scary-looking semi-automatic assault
weapon to defend himself against three masked teens armed with
at least one handgun who tried to rob him and other residents
in their own front yard. Ironically, the rifle deemed an
assault weapon by many in this room was used defensively to
protect innocent people against assault, while the perpetrators
used a non-assault weapon offensively to commit actual assault.
Importantly, some of the most famous examples of the
defensive use of assault weapons by civilians come from
scenarios where the government has been either unable or
unwilling to defend entire communities from large-scale civil
unrest. During the 1992 L.A. riots, for example, law
enforcement was nowhere to be found as hundreds of looters
ransacked Koreatown. Ordinary store owners, like Richard Rhee
and his employees, took it upon themselves to defend their
livelihoods from lawlessness, using, in many cases, semi-
automatic rifles. Similar stories emerged during the civil
unrest in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.
There are some here today who still genuinely don't
understand why or how anyone would need such scary-looking
rifles for purposes other than mass murder, and so I have
permission from my mother to explain it to you by partially
embarrassing her. My mother did not grow up with firearms, and
they will never be her favorite thing in the world. In fact,
she had ever handled a firearm until I took her to the range
for the first time several years ago.
Now, I love my mother, but like every other novice with a
handgun, she was quite bad. I mean, she struggled to hit a
stationary target from 6 yards out under ideal conditions. And
then she picked up an AR-15, and I watched my mother put a
fist-sized gripping of lead in the center mass of a target from
20 yards out. That is why law-abiding citizens buy millions of
these firearms. When accuracy and stopping power matter, they
are simply better.
Americans use firearms to defend themselves between 500,000
and 2 million times every year. God forbid that my mother is
ever faced with a scenario where she must stop a threat to her
life, but if she is, I hope politicians protected by
professional armed security didn't strip her of the right to
use the firearm she can handle most competently. Frankly, I
hope she has in her hands the scariest-looking assault weapon
she can find so that we can both be confident in her ability to
end the threat. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Swearer follows:]
STATEMENT OF AMY SWEARER
Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, and distinguished
Members of Congress:
My name is Amy Swearer, and I am the Senior Legal Policy
Analyst in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial
Studies at The Heritage Foundation.\1\ One of my primary issues
of research is the Second amendment and firearm-related policy.
I have been heavily involved in the Heritage Foundation's
School Safety Initiative, which was begun immediately after the
tragic 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland, Florida, to ensure that conservative voices played an
active role in conversations about gun violence and school
safety. My colleague John Malcolm and I have also co-authored a
series of Heritage Legal Memoranda examining the role of
serious untreated mental illness in gun violence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The title and affiliation are for identification purposes.
Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals
discussing their own independent research. The views expressed here are
my own and do not reflect an institutional position for The Heritage
Foundation or its board of trustees. The Heritage Foundation is a
public policy, research, and educational organization recognized as
exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is
privately supported and receives no funds from any government at any
level, nor does it perform any government or other contract work. The
Heritage Foundation is the most broadly supported think tank in the
United States. During 2017, it had hundreds of thousands of individual,
foundation, and corporate supporters representing every State in the
U.S. Its 2017 income came from the following sources: Individuals 71%,
Foundations 9%, Corporations 4%, Program revenue and other income 16%.
The top five corporate givers provided The Heritage Foundation with
3.0% of its 2017 income. The Heritage Foundation's books are audited
annually by the national accounting firm of RSM US, LLP.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Having a correct understanding of the reality of gun-
related violence--its scope, its causes, its exacerbating
factors--is vitally important to the creation of good public
policy. Just as doctors must form a correct diagnosis based on
an accurate assessment of symptoms if they are to recommend an
effective treatment plan, policy analysts and policymakers must
have an accurate understanding of the societal problems they
are seeking to combat. Unfortunately, too many policymakers
appear completely uninformed about basic factual realities
related to guns and gun violence.
When we honestly assess the characteristics of so-called
``assault weapons,'' the reality of gun-related violence in the
United States, and the limited role those weapons play in that
violence, we find that they do not pose a serious threat to
public safety. In short, the public perception of these semi-
automatic rifles is not consistent with reality. As an
objective measure, semi-automatic rifles are simply not used in
the vast majority of gun deaths. Moreover, in the small
percentage of cases where they are used, it is often unlikely
that their use--as opposed to the use of other firearms--made
any meaningful difference. Finally, while these types of
firearms are rarely used to commit crimes, they are used
countless numbers of times every year by law-abiding citizens
for lawful purposes, including self-defense.
I. The Characteristics of ``Assault Weapons'' Make Them Safer
for Lawful Use, Not More Dangerous
The term ``assault weapon'' does not have one official
definition, but typically denotes firearms that have a range of
features associated with modern semi-automatic rifles such as
the AR-15. It should be noted that the phrase ``assault
weapon'' is not a technical or legal term, but rather appears
to have become popular as part of a concerted effort by gun
control advocates to manipulate those with limited knowledge of
firearms into confusing certain semi-automatic rifles with
``assault rifles,'' which are functionally distinct and heavily
regulated by the Federal Government.\2\ However, unlike
``assault rifles,'' which are distinguished from other rifles
based on features that affect a firearm's mechanics and allow
for faster rates of fire, ``assault weapons'' are universally
categorized based on cosmetic features alone.\3\ The addition
of these cosmetic features, such as barrel shrouds, pistol
grips, forward grips, and collapsible buttstocks, do not change
the lethality of the round fired or increase the rate at which
those rounds can be fired. In fact, these features exist for
the purpose of making the firearm safer to operate and easier
to fire in a more accurate manner.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ For example, many attribute the popularization of the term to
the Violence Policy Center's Josh Sugarman, who in 1988 authored a
paper insinuating that its use was beneficial to fostering public
support for gun control. See Aaron Blake, Is It Fair To Call Them
``Assault Weapons''?, Wash. Post (Jan. 17, 2013), https://
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/01/17/is-it-fair-to-call-
them-assault-weapons/?arc404=true.
\3\ See generally David B. Kopel, Rational Basis Analysis of
``Assault Weapon'' Prohibition, 20 J. Contemp. L. 381, 395-401 (1994);
E. Gregory Wallace, ``Assault Weapons'' Myths, 43 S. Ill. U. L.J. 193
(2018).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
For instance, barrel shrouds are a component of ``assault
weapons'' that protect the operator's hand by partially or
completely covering the rifle barrel, which can often become
hot enough to cause serious burns after as little usage as
shooting through one standard magazine at a range.\4\ The
protective function of the barrel shroud is so fundamental to
its existence that recently proposed legislation to ban its use
defined the feature as: ``a shroud that is attached to, or
partially or completely encircles, the barrel of a firearm so
that the shroud protects the user of the firearm from heat
generated by the barrel.'' \5\ Yet, despite the fact that the
entire function of a barrel shroud is to protect lawful users
from injury during lawful use, gun control advocates routinely
point to this feature as something that must be banned because
it also protects unlawful users from injury.\6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ See Dennis P. Chapman, Features and Lawful Common Uses of Semi-
Automatic Rifles, Working Paper, at 63-68 (last revised Aug. 29, 2019),
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers .cfm?abstract_id=3436512.
\5\ Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, S. 150, 113th Cong. Sec. 2(b)(38)
(2013).
\6\ See Chapman, supra note 4, at 37-38; Wallace, supra note 3, at
211-212.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Similarly, collapsible or folding stocks do not affect the
mechanics of a firearm, but allow its length to be adjusted to
better suit the operator's specific height, wingspan, and
firing stance.\7\ Prohibiting the use of collapsible stocks for
civilian purposes because criminals might also take advantage
of those features is the logical equivalent of prohibiting the
use of seat adjustment settings in a car so that would-be drunk
drivers have a slightly more difficult time comfortably
operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol. The
prohibition does not meaningfully affect the ability of the
drunk driver to break the law and put lives in danger, but it
does make it significantly more difficult for many lawful
drivers to operate standard cars in a safe manner.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ See Kopel, supra note 4, at 398-99; Chapman, supra 4, at 80-87.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The same reasoning is true of prohibitions on the use of
pistol grips and forward grips, which allow the operator to
gain a more stable shooting base and fire in a more accurate
manner.\8\ Accuracy is objectively less important for a would-
be mass shooter, whose goal is not meaningfully thwarted if
some rounds miss the intended target and strike another. But
for the recreational shooter, the hunter, and the individual
utilizing a firearm in self-defense, accuracy is vital. For
someone relying on a firearm in self-defense, in particular,
the ability to accurately hit a moving target and end the
threat can mean the difference between life or death.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Wallace, supra note 4, at 230-31; Kopel, supra note 4, at 396-
97.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In short, proposals to ban ``assault weapons'' are, for all
intents and purposes, proposals to force law-abiding citizens
to use firearms that are harder to fire accurately and more
likely to cause them injuries, even when being used for lawful
purposes. As will be expounded below, this logic is even less
persuasive in light of the fact that semi-automatic rifles are
not a significant factor behind gun violence of any kind.
II. Semi-Automatic Rifles are Not a Significant Factor Behind
Gun Violence
Banning the civilian possession of certain commonly owned
semi-automatic rifles is an unnecessary and ineffective means
of combating gun-related violence, in large part because these
rifles are simply not used in the overwhelming majority of
firearm-related deaths in the United States. They play such a
minimal role in gun-related violence that, even if prohibition
were 100 percent successful and no substitution for other
firearms occurred, such a law would fail to have a meaningful
impact on overall rates of gun violence.
A. Semi-Automatic Rifles Play No Meaningful Role in Firearm
Suicides
For almost the last 20 years, the clear driving force
behind gun deaths in the United States has not been homicide,
but suicide, which now accounts for almost two-thirds of all
gun-related deaths in the country every year.\9\ Without a
doubt, the type of firearm most commonly used in those suicides
is the handgun.\10\ However, even where semi-automatic rifles
are used to commit suicide, the nature of suicide renders the
type of firearm irrelevant. The unfortunate reality is that it
does not matter whether the suicidal person pulled the trigger
on a handgun, a shotgun, or a rifle--the outcome would be the
same. For the increasing majority of gun-related deaths, then,
policies directed at firearm type are far less meaningful than
policies directed at more general mental health
intervention.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ See Drew DeSilver, Suicides Account for Most Gun Deaths, Pew
Research Center (May 24, 2013), http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/
2013/05/24/suicides-account-for-most-gun-deaths; Sherry L. Murphy et
al., Deaths: Final Data for 2015, 66 National Vital Statistics Report
No. 6, 39, Table 8 (Nov. 27, 2017), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/
nvsr66/nvsr66 _06.pdf. See also, National Center for Injury Prevention
and Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System
(WISQARS) (last visited July 1, 2019), www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars.
Importantly, even as the total number of suicides has increased over
the last 30 years, the percentage of suicides carried out with firearms
has actually decreased. See Sally C. Curtin et al., Increase in Suicide
in the United States, 1999-2014, National Center for Health Statistics
Data Brief No. 241 (Apr. 2016), https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/
databriefs/db241.htm.
\10\ See, e.g., Philip Alpers et al., United States--Death and
Injury, Sydney School of Public Health, GunPolicy.Org (last visited
Aug. 17, 2019), https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-
states. For suicides where data is available, the number of suicides
committed with handguns routinely and substantially outpaces the number
of suicides committed with long guns of any type. Id.
\11\ These measures can include, among other things, increasing
the number of public psychiatric beds available for treating those in
the midst of mental health crises, as well as the use of so-called red
flag laws. See John G. Malcolm & Amy Swearer, Part I: Mental Illness,
Firearms, and Violence, Heritage Found. Legal Memorandum No. 239 (Jan.
31, 2019), https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/report/part-i-mental-
illness-firearms-and-violence; John G. Malcolm & Amy Swearer, Part II:
The Consequences of Deinstitutionalizing the Severely Mentally Ill,
Heritage Found. Legal Memorandum No. 240 (Feb. 5, 2019), https://
www.heritage.org/firearms/report/part-ii-the-consequences-
deinstutionalizing-the-severely-mentally-ill; John G. Malcolm & Amy
Swearer, Part III: The Current State of Laws Regarding Mental Illness
and Guns, Heritage Found. Legal Memorandum No. 241 (Feb. 13, 2019),
https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/report/part-iii-the-current-
state-laws-regarding-mental-illness-and-guns. While red flag laws in
particular may be useful as specific interventions to temporarily
disarm objectively dangerous individuals, in order to be
unobjectionable, they must afford stringent and meaningful due process
protections. See Amy Swearer, Answers to Common Questions About ``Red
Flag'' Gun Laws, Heritage Foundation (Aug. 16, 2019), https://
www.heritage.org/firearms/commentary/answers-common-questions-about-
red-flag-gun-laws. Any laws that fail to afford adequate protections
against the wrongful or arbitrary loss of constitutional rights by law-
abiding and non-dangerous citizens should be categorically rejected as
an inappropriate means of combating gun-related violence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The complete irrelevance of semi-automatic rifles to
firearm suicides is especially important in light of the
greater reality of gun violence in this country. The United
States is actually in the midst of a decade of historically low
rates of violent crime, with national rates of gun homicide and
overall homicide roughly 50 percent lower today than at their
height in the early 1990s.\12\ This is not merely a case of
better emergency medical practices saving lives, either, as
non-fatal firearm crime rates are now one-sixth of what the
Nation experienced in the early 1990s.\13\ Amazingly, this
dramatic decrease in interpersonal violence has occurred during
a time when rates of household gun ownership have remained
stable, the number of firearms per capita has increased by
roughly 50 percent, and semi-automatic rifles are becoming
increasingly popular amongst civilians.\14\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ See Jens Manuel Krogstad, Gun Homicides Steady After Decline
in `90s; Suicide Rate Edges Up, Pew Research Center (Oct. 21, 2015),
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/21/gun-homicides-steady-
after-decline-in-90s-suicide-rate-edges-up/.
\13\ See id.; Michael Planty & Jennifer L. Truman, Firearm
Violence, 1993-2011, Bureau of Justice Statistics NCJ 241730 (May
2013), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf; Michael Planty &
Jennifer L. Truman, Criminal Victimization, 2017, Bureau of Justice
Statistics NCJ 252472 (Dec. 2018), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/
cv17.pdf.
\14\ In 1994, Americans owned an estimate 192 million firearms,
while the 2018 Small Arms Survey indicated that Americans now own
roughly 400 million firearms. Compare Jens Ludwig and Phillip J. Cook,
Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of
Firearms, NCJ 165476, May 1999, http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles/
165476.pdf with Aaron Karp, Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms
Numbers, Small Arms Survey Briefing Paper (June 2018), http://
www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-
Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf. Rates of household gun ownership have
remained consistently in the area 40 to 45 percent since 1974, with the
United States seeing both a high of 51 percent in 1993 and a low of 34
percent in 1999 before evening back out in recent years. See Historical
Trends: Guns--Do You Have A Gun In Your Home?, Gallup (last visited
Sept. 23, 2019), https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx. See also,
Brief of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., New York State
Piston & Rifle Ass'n, Inc. v. Cuomo, 804 F.3d 242 (2nd Cir. 2015),
http://www.nysrpa.org/files/SAFE/NSSF-amicus2.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
B. Handguns, Not Semi-Automatic Rifles, are Used in Most Gun
Crimes
Far from being the weapon of choice for would-be criminals,
semi-automatic rifles are statistically the type of firearm
least likely to be used for unlawful purposes, particularly
compared to handguns.\15\ Over the last decade, rifles of any
kind were definitively used in only 3-4 percent of gun
homicides, and it is not clear how many of those deaths
actually involved the use of ``assault weapons'' compared to
other types of rifles.\16\ The average American is, in fact,
four times more likely to be stabbed to death than he or she is
to be shot to death with a rifle of any kind.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ Handguns are used in the overwhelming majority of both
firearm-related homicides and non-fatal firearm crimes. Federal Bureau
of Investigation, Crime in the United States 2017, Expanded Homicide
Data Table 8, Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reports
(Last Reviewed Sept. 23, 2019), https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/
2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls;
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States 2013,
Expanded Homicide Data Table 8, Federal Bureau of Investigation:
Uniform Crime Reports (Last Reviewed Sept. 23, 2019), https://
ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-
known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/
expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls;
Marianne W. Zawitz, Guns Used in Crime, KBureau of Justice Statistics
NCJ-148201 (July 1995), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/GUIC.PDF;
Firearms Trace Data: Firearm Types Recovered and Traced in the United
States and Territories, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives (Last Reviewed Sept. 23, 2019), https://www.atf.gov/
resource-center/firearms-trace-data.
\16\ Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States
2017, Expanded Homicide Data Table 8, Federal Bureau of Investigation:
Uniform Crime Reports (Last Reviewed Sept. 23, 2019), https://
ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/
expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls; Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Crime in the United States 2013, Expanded Homicide Data Table 8,
Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reports (Last Reviewed
Sept. 23, 2019), https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-
the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/
expanded_homicide_data_table_8_ murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls.
\17\ Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States
2017, Expanded Homicide Data Table 8, Federal Bureau of Investigation:
Uniform Crime Reports (Last Reviewed Sept. 23, 2019), https://
ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/
expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls; Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Crime in the United States 2013, Expanded Homicide Data Table 8,
Federal Bureau of Investigation: Uniform Crime Reports (Last Reviewed
Sept. 23, 2019), https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-
the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/
expanded_homicide_data_table_8_ murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even where semi-automatic rifles were used to commit
homicide, it is nearly impossible to determine how many of
those homicides would not have been successfully committed if
the perpetrator had relied on a different type of firearm. This
same low estimate of rifle usage holds true across non-fatal
firearm crimes, where 90 percent are attributable to handguns
and only 10 percent are attributable to long guns of any
kind.\18\ The official analysis of the 1994 federal assault
weapons ban only underscores the reality that the prohibition
of firearms least likely to be used in violent crime is an
ineffective way of combating that violent crime. It concluded
that ``[s]hould it be renewed, the ban's effects on gun
violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small
for reliable measurement. [Assault weapons] were rarely used in
gun crimes even before the ban.''\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ Michael Planty & Jennifer L. Truman, Firearm Violence, 1993-
2011, Bureau of Justice Statistics NCJ 241730 (May 2013), https://
www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf.
\19\ Christopher S. Koper, An Updated Assessment of the Federal
Assault Weapons Ban: Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003
(June 2004), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/204431.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Handguns, Not Rifles, are the ``Weapon of Choice'' in Mass
Public Shootings
Gun control advocates, politicians, and the media routinely
characterize semi-automatic rifles, specifically the AR-15, as
the ``weapon of choice'' for mass public shooters. This is
objectively incorrect. Over the last decade, more than half of
mass public shooters have used handguns alone.\20\ Of those who
did use rifles, the majority also brought other firearms, such
as shotguns or handguns.\21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ See John R. Lott, Jr., & Rebekah C. Riley, The Myths About
Mass Public Shootings: Analysis, Crime Research Prevention Center
(Sept. 30, 2014), https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/
CPRC-Mass-Shooting-Analysis-Bloomberg1.pdf. More recent data compiled
by the Mother Jones mass public shooting database for the 48 mass
shootings between January 1, 2014 and September 23, 2019 shows that
handguns continue to be the firearm of choice for mass public shooters,
with the data showing 22 cases where the shooter used handguns alone
but only 11 where the shooter used rifles alone. Mother Jones Mass
Public Shooting Database, 1982-2019 https://www.motherjones.com/
politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/. The other 16
shooters used some combination of handguns, shotguns, and rifles.
\21\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The reality is that, even if all would-be mass public
shooters were successfully diverted to the use of ``non-assault
weapons,'' it would likely have no meaningful impact on their
ability to kill large numbers of unarmed civilians. With only a
few notable exceptions, such as the Las Vegas shooting in 2018,
the type of firearm was simply not a major factor in the
ability of mass shooters to cause significant casualties,
particularly compared to other important factors such the time
the shooter remained unconfronted by an armed response.\22\
While it is deeply unsettling to consider, when individuals
intent on evil have several minutes to hunt down and kill
unarmed civilians confined together as ``soft targets,'' it
does not matter whether the person has a shotgun, a handgun, or
a rifle. Some of the deadliest mass public shootings in United
States history have been carried out with nothing more than
handguns. This includes the worst school shooting in U.S.
history, at Virginia Tech in 2006, where the shooter was able
to fire 174 rounds in roughly 11 minutes, killing 30 people and
wounding 17 others with nothing more than common, relatively
low-caliber handguns.23 Similarly, in 1991 a shooter at a
Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, fatally shot \23\ and
wounded another 19 with two handguns.\24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ Consider, for example, that just weeks after the shooter at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed 17
people over the span of six minutes with a semi-automatic rifle, a
shooter at Santa Fe High School, in Santa Fe, Texas, was able to kill
10 people in under four minutes with a shotgun and revolver. See
Unprepared and Overwhelmed, Sun Sentinel (Dec. 28, 2018), https://
projects.sun-sentinel.com/2018/sfl-parkland-school-shooting-critical-
moments/#nt=oft09a-2gp1; Jack Healy and Manny Fernandez, Police
Confronted Texas School Gunman Within 4 Minutes, Sheriff Says, N.Y.
Times (May 21, 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/us/santa-fe-
officer-wounded-john-barnes.html.
\23\ The shooter used a .22 caliber Walther P22 and a 9 mm Glock
10. TriData Division, Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech: Addendum to the
Report of the Review Panel, at 30-A (Nov. 2009), https://
scholar.lib.vt.edu/prevail/docs/April16ReportRev20091204.pdf.
\24\ See Thomas C. Hayes, Gunman Kills 22 and Himself in Texas
Cafeteria, N.Y. Times (Oct. 17, 1991), https://www.nytimes.com/1991/10/
17/us/gunman-kills-22-and-himself-in-texas-cafeteria.html; Paula Chin,
A Texas Massacre, People Magazine (Nov. 4, 1991), https://people.com/
archive/a-texas-massacre-vol-36-no-17/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of this must be factored in light of the incredibly
small role mass public shootings play in the overall number of
firearm-related violence, accounting for only a fraction of a
percent of all gun deaths every year.\25\ This is not to
minimize the devastating impact such events can have on the
families and communities impacted by them, and these acts
certainly affect important public perceptions of overall safety
from gun-related violence. It is, rather, to give important
perspective to a policy proposal that, even if perfectly
implemented without any risk of shooters substituting other
firearms, would have a statistically insignificant impact on
gun violence rates in this country.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ See Appendix A (breaking down the number of annual gun deaths
attributable to mass public shootings and analyzing those numbers as a
percent of total firearm deaths every year).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
III. Semi-Automatic Rifles are Commonly Owned by Law-Abiding
Citizens and Have Legitimate Civilian Functions
While it is difficult to determine the exact number of
semi-automatic ``assault weapons'' owned by civilians in the
United States, recent estimates for the total national stock of
``modern sporting rifles'' reach as high as 16 million.\26\
Regardless of whether the number of civilian-owned
semiautomatic sporting rifles is, in fact, 16 million or in the
lower part of the estimated range of several million, it is
difficult to argue that an item owned by millions of Americans
is ``uncommon.'' \27\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ National Shooting Sports Foundation, 1990-2016, Estimated U.S.
Firearm Production of Semi-Automatic Rifles, Guns.com, https://
news.guns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/NSSF-MSR-Production-Estimates-
2017.pdf.
\27\ For context, in 2015, the United States had only 8.6 million
registered motorcycles, accounting for roughly 3 percent of all
registered vehicles, roughly on par with estimates of both the total
number of semi-automatic ``assault weapon'' rifles and the percentage
of these rifles compared to the total national gunstock. See National
Center for Statistics and Analysis, Traffic Safety Facts: Motorcycles,
at 2 (updated March 2017), https://crashstats .nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/
Public/ViewPublication/812353. While motorcycles, like AR-15s, are not
``household items,'' few would argue that motorcycles are ``uncommon''
among lawful drivers in any meaningful sense of the term.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the last several decades, there has been a concerted
effort by gun control activists to characterize certain semi-
automatic rifles as ``weapons of war'' that have ``no business
on our streets.'' Ostensibly, this is to create the impression
that the cosmetic features associated with firearms like the
AR-15 serve no legitimate civilian purpose, and render a
firearm objectively inappropriate for lawful uses like hunting,
recreational target shooting, or self-defense. On its face,
this is an absurd premise. As noted above, the cosmetic
features distinguishing ``assault weapons'' from ``non-assault
weapons'' do not change the lethality or mechanical operation
of a firearm, but rather make the firearm safer and easier to
operate in lawful contexts. Moreover, the simple market reality
is that millions of law-abiding Americans continue to buy these
firearms precisely because they use them literally countless
numbers of times every year for a variety of lawful activities.
In stark contrast to assertions that semi-automatic rifles
are not defensive weapons fit for use against threats faced by
civilians, law enforcement agencies around the country have
long insisted just the opposite--that these types of firearms
are actually necessary for confronting some types of civilian
threats. In the United States, law enforcement agencies serve
an entirely defensive and reactive function. Police officers
are called upon, not to conduct offensive war or engage in
military battles, but to protect and defend against threats
made in a civilian context. Police departments routinely issue
semi-automatic rifles to their officers precisely because these
rifles are useful against the very same criminals initially
faced by the innocent citizens who called the police in the
first place.
Moreover, federal law enforcement agencies refer to even
select-fire AR-15 style rifles as ``personal defense weapons.''
This is not a new designation by a gun-friendly Republican
Administration, but rather a designation routinely utilized by
federal agencies under President Obama. For example, in 2012,
the Department of Homeland Security opened up a bidding process
to find contractors who would arm federal law enforcement
agents with ``personal defense weapons.''\28\ The
specifications for these explicitly defensive weapons included
features that if used by a civilian would, in the eyes of
ardent gun control advocates, magically turn the firearm from a
defensive weapon into an ``assault weapon''--they were to be
chambered in 5.56 45 mm NATO \29\ and equipped with a
collapsible buttstock, a pistol grip, a Picattiny rail for
mounting sights and accessories, and ``standard'' 30-round
magazine.\30\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\28\ Personal Defense Weapons Solicitation, Department of Homeland
Security HSCEMS-12-R-00011 (June 2, 2012), https://www.fbo.gov/
?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=d791b6aa
0fd9d3d8833b2efa08300033&_cview=0.
\29\ 5.56 45 mm NATO is a common round for semi-automatic rifles,
including the AR-15.
\30\ Part I--The Schedule, section C--Description/Specifications/
Statement of Work, HSCEMS-12-R-00011, https://www.fbo.gov/
?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=d791b6aa0
fd9d3d8833b2efa08300033&_cview=0.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is little wonder, then, that many law-abiding citizens
also rely on semi-automatic rifles as their own personal
defense weapons, particularly in situations where law
enforcement cannot protect them. Far from needing to be better
protected from these rifles, law-abiding Americans benefit when
they are allowed to defend themselves with them. Just last
week, a homeowner in Rockdale County, Georgia, relied on his
semi-automatic ``assault weapon'' to defend himself against
three masked teens who used at least one handgun to try to rob
him and other residents in their own front yard.\31\ In other
words, this ``assault weapon'' was used defensively to protect
innocent people against assault, while the perpetrators used a
handgun ``offensively'' to actually commit assault. This
successful defensive use of AR-15 style rifles is not an
anomaly, but a recurrent theme in civilian defensive gun uses,
particularly in home invasion scenarios or where an individual
is outnumbered by attackers.\32\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ See Guy Benson, Self Preservation: Homeowner Defends Himself
Against Trio of Armed Robbers Using ``Assault Weapon,'', Townhall
(Sept. 19, 2019), https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2019/09/19/
self-preservation-homeowner-defends-himself-against-trio-of-armed-
robbers-using-assault-weapon-n2553238.
\32\ See, e.g., Austin L. Miller, Summerfield Homeowner Injured,
Kills 2 Intruders With AR-15, Ocala Starbanner (Updated July 12, 2019),
https://www.ocala.com/news/20190711/summerfield-homeowner-injured-
kills-2-intruders-with-ar-15; Police: Tallahassee Homeowner Shot 2 Out
of 4 Home Invasion Suspects, All 4 Charged, WTXL Tallahassee (Updated
May 24, 2019), https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/tpd-investigating-
home-invasion-robbery; Rob Shikina, Victim Fires AR-15 at Suspects in
Haiku Home Invasion Robbery, Maui Police Say, Star Advertiser (July 21,
2018), https://www.staradvertiser.com/2018/07/21/breaking-news/victim-
fires-ar-15-at-suspects-in-haiku-home-invasion-robbery-maui-police-say/
; Allison Sylte, Retired Officer Used 2 AR-15s to Stop Man Accused of
Firing at Random People, News.com9 (July 9, 2018), https://
www.9news.com/article/news/crime/retired-officer-used-2-ar-15s-to-stop-
man-accused-of-firing-at-random-people/572102809; Garrett Pelican, 5
Charged in Baker County Home Invasion Turned Deadly Shootout, News 4
Jacksonville (Apr. 16, 2018), https://www. news4jax.com/news/5-
arrested-after-florida-home-invasion-ends-deadly-shootout; Shannon
Antinori, AR-15-Weilding Neighbor Speaks Out, 2 Charged in Stabbing,
Patch.com (Updated Mar. 2, 2018), https://patch.com/illinois/oswego/ar-
15-threat-used-stop-knife-attack-sheriff; Homeowner's Son Kills Three
Would-Be Burglars With AR-15, N.Y. Post (Mar. 28, 2017), https://
nypost.com/2017/03/28/homeowners-son-kills-three-would-be-burglars-
with-ar-15/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beyond home invasions, some of the most famous examples of
the civilian use of semi-automatic rifles come from scenarios
where the government has been either unable or unwilling to
defend entire communities from large-scale civil unrest. In
1992 during the L.A. riots, store owners in Koreatown found
themselves at the mercy of hundreds of looters intent on
ransacking and burning their businesses. For days, law
enforcement was nowhere to be found, and the Koreatown
storeowners took it upon themselves to defend their livelihoods
from lawlessness. The Los Angeles Times, among others,
recounted the story of Richard Rhee, one of many shop owners
who barricaded their stores with employees and defended their
inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property \33\ through
the use of all manner of firearms, including fully automatic
rifles.\34\ Similarly, during the civil unrest in Ferguson,
Missouri, in 2014, Reuters reported on several African American
men who stood armed with various semi-automatic rifles outside
the gas station of a White friend, successfully protecting his
business from looters and rioters.\35\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ While the Declaration of Independence references ``life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,'' the Framers believed that the
rights to ``liberty'' and ``property'' could not be separated, as one
cannot exist without the other. See Paul J. Larkin, Jr., The Original
Understanding of ``Property'' In the Constitution, 100 Marq. L. Rev. 1
(2016).
\34\ See Ashley Dunn, King Case Aftermath: A City in Crisis, L.A.
Times (May 2, 1992), https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-05-
02-mn-1281-story.html.
\35\ See Emily Flitter, In Ferguson, Black Residents Stand Guard At
White-Owned Store, Reuters (Nov. 26, 2014), https://www.reuters.com/
article/us-usa-missouri-shooting-gasstation/in-ferguson-black-
residents-stand-guard-at-white-owned-store-idUSKCN0JA1XF20141126.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
IV. Conclusion
Nothing in the data about gun violence in the United States
or the technical aspects of semi-automatic firearms supports a
policy of stripping law-abiding gun owners of rifles that are
often used for lawful purposes and rarely used to commit
crimes. There are, unfortunately, many Americans who will
conclude that I do not care about protecting innocent life and
that I harbor a callous disregard for those affected by mass
shootings.
While it is certainly the case that I believe public policy
should be based on an accurate assessment of reality, a defense
of semi-automatic rifles is more than an exercise in data and
technical functions. At the end of the day, this about my
mother.
My mother did not grow up with firearms. In fact, she had
never handled a firearm until I took her to the gun range for
the first time. Like every other novice, my mother was terrible
with a handgun, and struggled to hit a stationary target from
just a few yards away. But when she picked up an AR-15 for the
first time, she put a fist-sized grouping of lead in the center
of that target from 20 yards out.
Now, I pray that my mother is never confronted with a
situation where she is compelled to point a firearm at another
human being, much less pull the trigger. I would infinitely
prefer to live a world where I never have to consider the
possibility that someone would threaten her life or the lives
of those around her.
But I study gun violence every day. Even though violent
crime rates are dropping, as a policy analyst I am acutely
aware that Americans use their firearms in defense of
themselves or others between 500,000 and 2 million times every
year. That is not some number range I made up as a conservative
talking point, but one which in 2013, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention confirmed has been found by almost every
major study on the issue.\36\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\36\ Inst. of Medicine & Nat'l. Research Council, Priorities for
Research To Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence 15 (Alan I.
Leshner, Bruce M. Altevogt, Arlene F. Lee, Margaret A. McCoy, and
Patrick W. Kelley, eds. 2013), https://www.nap.edu/read/18319/chapter/
3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the past few months, I have drafted several articles
on defensive gun uses by ordinary Americans. I have been struck
time and time again by the number of mothers just like mine,
who are confronted on otherwise ordinary days by extraordinary
threats. They do not live in gated communities. They cannot
afford private security. They do not receive police details.
They do not have the luxury of waiting for law enforcement to
arrive. To them, the ability to defend themselves with a
firearm they can trust themselves to handle comfortably, to
fire accurately, and to stop the threat in its tracks is not a
statistical exercise.
God forbid that my mother is ever faced with a scenario
where she must stop a threat to her life. But if she is, I hope
she has a so-called ``assault weapon'' to end that threat.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Ms. Muller?
TESTIMONY OF DIANNA MULLER
Ms. Muller. Thank you, Chair Nadler and Ranking Member
Collins--I'll acknowledge him even though he's not here--and
Committee Members. My name is Dianna Muller, and I'm an
ordinary American, one who has had different life experiences
that bring me here today as a dissenter of any gun control
laws, including the assault weapons ban.
After 22 years as a police officer with assignments that
included patrols, street crimes, gangs, and narcotics, I
retired to focus on a second career as a professional shooter,
and I've had the honor to represent our country on an
international stage. Four years ago I came to this town as a
tourist, and during a haphazard meeting with my congressman, I
asked if there was there anything I should be doing to dispel
the information about guns and gun owners that running rampant
on Capitol Hill.
From there, the DC Project was born, an educational and
nonpartisan effort of 50 women, one from every State, meeting
their legislators as gun owners and Second amendment
supporters. We are as diverse as any cross-section of America.
Many of our women, like victims of these mass public murders,
have endured unspeakable violence themselves or lost loved
ones. Their stories are similar to Kate Nixon's. It was
reported that Kate knew her co-worker was unstable and felt
that he would shoot up the place. Her husband encouraged her to
take a pistol to work, but she didn't want to break the rules.
She followed the policy that was supposed to keep her safe, a
gun-free zone, and she was murdered the next day in the
Virginia Beach tragedy.
These laws and policies are taking away a woman's right to
choose. Gun rights are women's rights. That's why I'm honored
to be here today to be a voice for the millions of American
women who share my ideology, but are not represented in
mainstream media or squelched on social media. As a woman, I'm
likely smaller and less equipped for violence than an attacker
or if I'm outnumbered by people who may do me harm. My firearm
is the great equalizer and levels the playing field.
I married late in life, and I spent the majority of my
adult life sleeping by myself. There were so many nights that
there were bumps in the night, and I'm sure it's happened to
you guys, but I had peace because I have a firearm by my side,
specifically an AR-15. I own and carry firearms not to take a
life, but to protect a life. I am worth protecting. My family
is worth protecting.
So why does anybody need an AR-15? Let me explain it in
shoes. You wouldn't run a marathon in dress shoes, and you
wouldn't go to a formal ball in sneakers. Similarly, each of my
firearms have a specific purpose. The AR-15 just falls in the
category of that really comfortable dressy shoe that gets
called on many occasions. It's my go-to for home defense and
vehicle gun. As a competitor, I've turned a hobby into a
living, and my husband hunts with an AR.
The AR-15 platform is the most popular general-purpose
rifle because it's the most versatile and most customizable.
Freedom doesn't ask why the need. To quote William Pitt the
Younger, ``Necessity is the plea for every infringement on
human freedom. It the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of
slaves.''
For 22 years, I enforced the law you created, and I had a
front-row seat to the justice system. It's frustrating to see
the revolving door where prosecutors reduce or drop charges and
judges give minimal sentencing. I find it ironic in today's
effort of criminal justice reform that you are taking steps to
be lenient on people who have actually committed crimes against
laws you've already created, while at the same time proposing
more laws that turn ordinary law-abiding citizens, like myself,
into criminals. How about holding the people accountable for
the laws that are already on the books before we pass any
further legislation that would only be a burden on the law-
abiding? If these laws were the answer, Chicago, Baltimore,
L.A., and even this city would be the safest city in America.
The firearms community is #doingsomething. We are leading
the way on meaningful safety measures. I implore you, work with
us instead of demonizing us. Law-abiding American gun owners
are not the enemy. Help our community promote programs, like
Project ChildSafe, Eddie Eagle, and the Kids Safe Foundation
that teaches kids about firearm safety. FASTER Saves Lives and
School Shield are school security programs and Walk the Talk
America is a suicide prevention program. These are initiatives
that are being driven by the firearms industry.
If you really want to make a difference in gun-related
deaths, get behind these programs and fund them because we
believe one life unjustifiably taken is one life too many.
Let's put firearms education back in schools and start
protecting our kids like we protect the people in this
building. Education over legislation. Thank you for your time
to speak. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for your
time and service.
[The statement of Ms. Muller follows:]
STATEMENT OF DIANNA MULLER
Thank you, Chair Nadler and Ranking Member Collins and
Committee Members,
I am an ordinary American--one who has had different life
experiences that bring me here today as a dissenter to any
additional gun control laws, including the so-called Assault
Weapon Ban.
After 22 years of service as a police officer with
assignments that included patrol, street crimes, gangs, and
narcotics, I retired to focus on a second career as a
professional competition shooter. I am a world and national
champion and have had the honor of representing this country on
an international stage. I'm also an accidental advocate. Four
years ago, I came to Washington, DC as a tourist, and during a
chance meeting with my congressman, I asked if there was
anything I, as a professional shooter, should do to dispel the
misinformation about guns and gun owners. From there, the DC
Project was born. It is a nonpartisan, educational effort of
women, one from every state, who meet with their legislators as
gun owners and Second amendment supporters, to be a resource
and voice for lawful gun owners.
I sit before you today honored to speak on behalf of those
women--mothers, daughters, young and old, black, white, Latino
and Asian, hunters and competitors, transgender and straight,
#metoo and #notme, on the political left and right. We are as
diverse as any cross section of America. To list a few among
our ranks:
Lara Smith, from California is a staunch Democrat and the
National Spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club and understands that the
Second Amendment is a constitutional, not a partisan, issue;
Mia Farinelli, from Virginia, is a 15-year-old 3-gun
competitive shooter that stands 54", weighs 90 pounds; an honor roll
student that speaks two languages and is learning a third;
Robyn Sandoval, from Texas, is left-leaning, reformed
anti-gun mom who now heads up A Girl and a Gun, a nationwide women's
shooting club;
Gina Roberts, from California, is a transgender woman who
knows the Second Amendment is for everyone;
Corinne Mosher, from Kansas, is a concert violinist
turned tactical firearms instructor and takes keeping her family safe
seriously;
Amanda Johnson, from Virginia, was raped at gun point on
a gun-free campus, yards from the police station; even though she had a
concealed carry license, she left it at home because she wanted to
follow the rules. Her attacker went on to rape and kill his next
victim. Amanda is confident she could have made a difference in both of
their outcomes if she had not been disarmed.
Lucretia Hughes, from Georgia, is a African American who
strongly advocates for the 2nd Amendment, in part, because she lost her
son to gang violence when a felon used an illegally obtained gun to
shoot him in the head;
Gabby Franco, from Texas, is a mom and a naturalized
citizen from Venezuela who has seen the effects of gun control in her
native country;
Kristi McMains, from Indiana, vigorously fought off a
stranger's attack in a parking garage for several minutes before
getting to her gun and shooting the assailant. She fought so hard she
broke all ten nails, had fibers in her teeth from his gloves, and
broken ribs;
Melissa Schuster, from Illinois, was brutally beaten,
stabbed and raped in a stranger home invasion;
Shayna Lopez Rivas, from Florida, was raped at knifepoint
on a gun free campus and only learned how to shoot afterwards, but now
advocates for campus carry;
Nikki Goeser, from Tennessee, husband was shot and killed
by her stalker in a gun-free zone, while her permitted firearm remained
in her vehicle, like the good, law abiding citizen she is.
Every DC Project member has a story and many of these
women, like the victims of the recent mass murders, have
endured unspeakable violence themselves or lost loved ones.
Their stories are similar to that of Kate Nixon. According to
reports, Kate knew her co-worker was unstable and felt he would
``shoot the place up.'' Her husband encouraged her to take a
pistol to work, but she didn't want to break the rules. She
followed the policy that was supposed to keep her safe, a gun
free zone. Kate went to work the next day and was killed in the
Virginia Beach tragedy. These laws and policies take away a
woman's right to choose. Gun rights are women's rights! That's
why I'm honored to be here, to be a voice for the millions of
women who share my beliefs, but are not represented in
mainstream media or are squelched on social media.
As an instructor, I've had the honor of introducing many
people, especially women, to firearms training. I notice many
women go through amazing transformations. Their self-confidence
is palatable. I had one woman who was terrified at the
beginning of class and at the end. She looked me in the eye,
took a hold of my arms and said, ``You have changed my life. I
am a different person.'' I see it time and time again how a
little education can go a long way!
Why does anyone need an AR-15? Let me explain it in shoes.
You wouldn't run a marathon dress shoes and you wouldn't go to
a formal ball in sneakers. Similarly, each of my firearms have
a specific purpose. The AR-15 falls into a category of a really
comfortable, dressy flat that gets called on for many
occasions. It's my go-to for a home defense and vehicle gun. As
a competitor, I've turned a hobby into a living. My husband
hunts with his AR platform. The AR platform is the most popular
general-purpose rifle because it's the most versatile and
customizable, and freedom doesn't ask ``why the need.'' To
quote William Pitt the Younger, ``Necessity is the plea for
every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of
tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.''
Please allow me to address some of the basics about
firearms. I've been hearing the phrases like ``assault weapon''
and ``weapon of war'' in reference to the AR-15. The ``AR''
stands for Armalite Rifle, the name of the original
manufacturer, NOT assault rifle. You may hear it referred to as
a modern sporting rifle. As far as a ``weapon of war,'' let me
remind you that every firearm can be lethal. The only
difference is in the intent of the operator. This common
misconception about the most popular rifle in America is one of
the reasons I started the DC Project, to promote education over
legislation. Each year, we invite Members and staffers to the
range and each of you have access to training from professional
shooters like myself. While I fully appreciate you listening to
me today, you could get a better appreciation of the importance
our community places on and the safe handling and operation of
firearms if you were to come to the range.
As a police officer, I enforced the laws you created and I
had a front row seat to the justice system. It's frustrating to
see the revolving door where prosecutors reduce or drop charges
and judges give minimal sentencing. I find it ironic in today's
effort of criminal justice reform that you are taking steps to
be lenient on people who have actually committed crimes AGAINST
LAWS YOU CREATED, while at the same time you are proposing more
laws, like the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019, that turn ordinary,
law-abiding citizens into criminals. I submit that we work on
holding people accountable for the laws that are already on the
books before we pass any further legislation, that would only
be a burden on the law-abiding. If these laws were the answer,
Chicago, Baltimore, LA, and even this city, would be the safest
cities in America.
If we learn anything from the Parkland tragedy, it is the
repeated failure of government, laws, and policy. Students
``saw something and said something'' to school Administration;
law enforcement responded to the shooter's residence more than
30 times, with no action taken. The ultimate failure in
Parkland was from the responding officers that fateful day.
They remained outside while students were continuing to be
murdered inside. Parkland reminds us that law enforcement has
no constitutional duty to protect.
If you ask what would have stopped the Parkland shooter,
it's the same answer as in every shooting: Being confronted
with equal force. During my years serving the citizens of my
community, I responded to countless calls for help. If you have
ever called 911, you know it can feel like a lifetime for them
to answer, let alone how long it takes for help to arrive. I
don't wish for anyone to be defenseless, so I encourage people
to seek training, at least unarmed, situational awareness and
``stop the bleed'' training all the way up to firearms
training, if they choose. Prepare to be your own first
responder.
Ordinary citizens are safer when they have the tools to
defend themselves and their families, and that includes the AR-
15. As a woman, I'm likely smaller and less equipped for
violence than an attacker or if I'm outnumbered by people who
may do me harm, my firearm is the great equalizer and levels
the playing field. I married late in life and for most of my
adult life, I lived on my own. There were so many times I heard
a bump in the middle of the night, but I had a peace about
having an AR-15 by my side. I own and carry firearms not to
take a life, but to protect a life. I am worth protecting. My
family is worth protecting.
American gun owners recognize that we are up against a very
well-organized, well-funded effort, assisted by the mainstream
media, masterfully crafting campaigns to demonize guns and gun
owners, and disarm our citizenry. From politicians, mainstream
media and our schools using their megaphones to paint gun
owners as ``deplorables'' or ``domestic terrorists'' to now
discriminating against gun owners. According to the FBI, more
deaths occur from hammers and blunt objects each year than from
all rifles combined. Common sense tells us that banning
``assault rifles'' will not stop the problem of mass murders.
Common sense tells me that if you succeed in banning this gun,
you will go after the next gun when the next tragedy happens.
My own experience with prior Assault Weapons Ban was it was
ineffective. I saw zero impact on the streets and the FBI
statistics confirmed it.
If you are intellectually honest you would look at civilian
defensive uses of firearms, which according to the government's
own CDC data estimates over one million times per year. Aren't
those lives SAVED worth as much as the lives that have been
taken by criminal homicide? Any ban on firearms will inhibit a
citizen's ability to protect themselves and their families and
their homes. Can you understand my hesitancy to support any
laws that are designed to restrict or infringe on my God-given
rights? The Constitution guarantees the government will not
infringe on the right to keep and bear arms.
Each of you is actually pro-gun. Everyday in this very
building, you are surrounded and protected by men and women
with firearms; some of you just are against me and others
having firearms. What about ordinary Americans who don't have
the luxury of having someone else carry guns for us to protect
us?
As a professional shooter, I've come to truly respect
``gun'' folks. They are the ``good guys,'' and they are the
firearm safety experts. Although we're an extremely diverse
group, racially, politically, and socioeconomically, our
foremost priority as ``gun'' people is ALWAYS safety through
education. Education is vital when it comes to guns and keeping
people, including children, safe. When I began shooting
competitively 10 years ago, I was good at shooting, but what I
really fell in love with were the people. Rest assured, if you
put a picture or video on social media that is even remotely
unsafe, you be hounded by our community! Our kids excel in
education and are mature beyond their years, like I mentioned
with Mia Farinelli. When I hear my community called `domestic
terrorists', it's incongruent with what I know to be true.
The firearms community IS leading the way in meaningful
safety measures. We are addressing violence. I implore you,
please work WITH us instead of demonizing us. Rather than
attacking me because I belong to an organization that is
founded on the principles of education and safety, look to me
as an expert in my field. I am NOT the enemy. Millions of law-
abiding American gun owners are NOT the enemy. Please HELP our
community promote Project ChildSafe, Eddie Eagle, or the Kid
Safe Foundation to teach kids about firearm safety; ``FASTER
Saves Lives'' or ``School Shield,'' school security programs;
and ``alk the Talk America,'' a suicide prevention program. If
you really want to make a difference in gun-related deaths, get
behind these programs and FUND them. Because we believe ONE
life unjustifiably taken is one too many. Let's put firearms
education back in schools and start protecting our kids like we
protect the people in this building! Education over
legislation.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak and thank you for
your time and service.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Mr. Chipman.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID CHIPMAN
Mr. Chipman. Good morning, Chair, Members of the committee.
Thank you for letting me testify today. My name is David
Chipman, and I am the senior policy adviser at Giffords, the
gun violence prevention organization founded by former
Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. I am a gun owner, and I served as
special agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives for 25 years.
Throughout my ATF career, I served on the front lines of
our government's efforts to prevent violent crime and
effectively regulate the firearms industry. I worked to disrupt
firearms trafficking conspiracies along the iron pipeline,
served on ATF SWAT team, and later was the special agent in
charge of the Agency's firearms programs. My time as a Federal
law enforcement officer taught me that although all weapons can
be dangerous in the wrong hands, some weapons are particularly
lethal and should be more strictly regulated.
Our Nation's current gun violence crisis has made two
things very clear. One, it is far too easy for violent people
to get their hands on deadly weapons, and two, the American
people overwhelmingly want Congress to Act now to make their
communities safer.
Assault weapons are a class of semi-automatic firearms
originally intended for military use, designed to kill people
quickly and efficiently. These weapons are often the weapon of
choice for mass shooters. Assault weapons, like the semi-
automatic AR-15, I used on ATF SWAT team are configured so that
a shooter can fire accurately and rapidly. Most importantly,
they can accept detachable magazines. There is virtually no
limit to the possible size of a magazine. This enables the
shooter to continue firing as many as 100 rounds without having
to stop and reload, maximizing the casualties in a shooting.
Absent the ability to fire automatically, these weapons are
identical to those used by the military.
The public and many lawmakers, including many on this
committee, have called for a renewal of the 90s era assault
weapons ban. As an ATF special agent charged with enforcing
that law, I can say with confidence that there were both
benefits and limitations. The 1994 Act had a positive effect on
public safety. Research indicates that during the 10-year
period the Federal assault weapons ban was in effect, mass
shooting fatalities were 70 percent less likely to occur
compared to the periods before and after the ban.
The 1994 Act suffered from notable limitations. The law did
not regulate the transfer or possession of assault weapons
manufactured before the law's effective date. Manufacturers
took advantage of this loophole by boosting production of
assault weapons in the months leading up to the ban.
Consequently, while the law was in place, assault weapons were
regularly resold through private transactions, undermining its
effectiveness. However, we rarely saw the kinds of mass
shooting we're seeing today.
Since the assault weapon ban expired in 2004, the gun
industry has continued to design and sell more dangerous
weapons. For instance, during the 1990s, assault pistols, like
the TEC-9, fired 9-millimeter handgun rounds. Modern AR and AK
pistols, like the weapon used in Dayton and earlier this year
to kill a Milwaukee police officer, fire rifle rounds. We
currently do not have a reliable count of how many assault
weapons are in circulation. Estimates are in the tens of
millions.
If our goal is to balance the rights of responsible law-
abiding gun owners and the urgent need to keep particularly
dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals, simply
reinstating the 90s era ban on assault weapons is not enough.
One option would be to require the registration of all existing
assault weapons in civilian hands under the National Firearms
Act, while banning the future manufacture and sale of these
firearms.
The NFA was enacted in response to violent gun crimes and
the death of law enforcement officers during the 1930s. The NFA
imposes an excise tax and registration requirement to possess
certain weapons, including silencers, sawed-off shotguns,
short-barreled rifles, machine guns, and other particularly
dangerous firearms. To possess one of these weapons, applicants
must pass a background check, provide fingerprints and a photo,
pay a $200 transfer tax, and register their NFA weapon with
ATF. Using the NFA to address assault weapons would use an
existing and effective regulatory structure that allows lawful
ownership, while also addressing the public safety concerns.
For more than 80 years, this regulatory system has worked
effectively. Legally owned NFA weapons are rarely used in
crime. I have built my career around the belief that it is
possible to balance rights and responsibilities. I have stood
in the face of danger to protect public safety carrying an
assault weapon. It is simply unacceptable that military-style
and high-powered weapons are so readily available to civilians
today, and that they increasingly lead to loss of innocent
lives. We can and should take action to make our communities
safer.
Thank you for considering my testimony today, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The statement of Mr. Chipman follows:]
STATEMENT OF DAVID H. CHIPMAN
Good morning, Chair Nadler, Ranking Member Collins, and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today. My name is David Chipman, and I am the Senior
Policy Advisor at Giffords, the gun violence prevention
organization founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. I
am a gun owner and a former special agent at the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) for 25 years.
Throughout my career, I served on the front lines of our
government's efforts to prevent violent crime and effectively
regulate the firearms industry, the core missions of ATF.
During my time at ATF, I worked to disrupt firearms trafficking
conspiracies along the Iron Pipeline, served on ATF's SWAT
team, and later served as the Special Agent in Charge of the
agency's firearms programs. My time as a federal law
enforcement officer taught me that although all weapons can be
dangerous in the wrong hands, some weapons are particularly
lethal and should be more strictly regulated.
Why? Because gun violence has become a public safety
crisis: approximately 36,000 people in this country are fatally
shot each year, and another 100,000 are shot and wounded. In
2017, gun deaths reached their highest level in at least four
decades. Gun violence claims nearly 100 lives and injures
almost 300 more every single day.
Our nation's gun violence crisis at this moment in time has
made two things very clear. One, it is far too easy for violent
people to get their hands on deadly weapons and harm others.
Two, the American people-overwhelmingly-want Congress to Act
now to make their communities safer.
There is absolutely nothing controversial about
acknowledging that some people simply shouldn't have guns. The
Gun Control Act of 1968 established that certain categories of
people--including convicted felons, domestic abusers, and other
dangerous individuals--are not allowed to possess or purchase
guns. The Brady Act created the National Instant Criminal
Background Check System (NICS) and requires federally licensed
gun dealers to conduct background checks to ensure that
prohibited people are not able to buy guns.
As an ATF agent, I often heard calls that I should focus on
enforcing the laws on the books. As a gun violence prevention
advocate, I hear those same calls today. The truth is that
there are loopholes in federal law that undermine public
safety, and those loopholes need to be closed. Simply put,
there is more that we can, and must, do to regulate
particularly dangerous weapons.
Assault weapons are a class of semi-automatic firearms,
originally intended for military and law enforcement use,
designed to kill people quickly and efficiently. As a result,
these weapons are often the weapon of choice for mass shooters.
A review of mass shootings between 2009 and 2015 found that
incidents where assault weapons or large capacity ammunition
magazines were used resulted in 155% more people shot and 47%
more people killed compared to other incidents.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ ``Mass Shootings in the United States: 2009-2017,'' Everytown
for Gun Safety. 6 December 2018. https://everytownresearcb.org/
reportsImass-sbootiogs-analysis/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the past few years, there has been a noticeable common
thread connecting many of the most horrific shootings: San
Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Parkland,
El Paso, Dayton, and Odessa. These shootings took place in
different corners of the United States, the perpetrators had
different motivations, but the firearm ties them together.
When I began working at ATF, assault weapons were rarely
used in crime. Nevertheless, I became familiar with them
because as trained law enforcement officials, we used assault
rifles like the AR-15 and the H&K MP-5 in SWAT operations.
Assault weapons, including AR-15s and AK-47 rifles, are
configured so that a shooter can fire rapidly. Most
importantly, they can accept detachable magazines. The magazine
is the part of the weapon that holds ammunition and feeds into
the gun when the trigger is pulled. There is virtually no limit
to the possible size of a magazine. This enables the shooter to
continue firing as many as 100 rounds without having to stop
and reload, maximizing the casualties in a shooting.
Absent the ability to fire automatically, these weapons are
identical to those used by the military. Military weapons are
selective fire, meaning that the user can easily switch between
automatic, three-round burst and semi-automatic mode. The
military included the option to fire in automatic mode and
burst mode meaning the gun will fire more than a single round
when the trigger is pulled--because military combat in extreme
conditions sometimes requires use of automatic fire. Shooting
in semi-automatic mode--meaning that with one pull of the
trigger, one shot is fired--is most accurate and hence
typically more lethal. Civilian versions of these weapons are
semi-automatic only. However, they are configured in the same
manner with the same purpose: To allow a shooter to maintain
control over the weapon without having to stop to reload or
reacquire a target.
Particularly after the tragedies and violence of the past
few months, the public and many lawmakers, including many on
this committee, have called for a renewal of the 90s-era
assault weapons ban. As an ATF Special Agent charged with
enforcing that ban, I can say with confidence that there were
both benefits and limitations to the ban. The 1994 Act does
seem to have had a positive effect on public safety: research
indicates that during the 10-year period the federal assault
weapons ban was in effect, mass shooting fatalities were 70%
less likely to occur compared to the periods before and after
the ban.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Charles DiMaggio et al., ``Changes in US Mass Shooting Deaths
Associated with the 1994-2004 Federal Assault Weapons Ban: Analysis of
Open-Source Data,'' Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 86, no. 1
(2019): 11-19.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was a young agent when the law went into effect in 1994.
Many Members of law enforcement at that time were shocked by
exemptions in the law. I was familiar with an incident that
occurred in Miami in 1986: Two FBI agents were killed in a
shootout with two bank robbers who used a Ruger Mini-14 rifle.
In that incident, the FBI was outgunned, and as a result, the
FBI upgraded its weapons. Yet, when the assault weapons ban
went into effect in 1994, the Ruger Mini-14--a particularly
lethal semi-automatic rifle capable of accepting a detachable
magazine--was expressly exempted.
The 1994 Act suffered from some other notable limitations.
Most importantly, the law did not regulate the transfer or
possession of assault weapons manufactured before the law's
effective date. Manufacturers took advantage of this loophole
by boosting production of assault weapons in the months leading
up to the ban, creating a legal stockpile of these items.
Consequently, while the law was in place, if we as law
enforcement encountered an assault weapon, we were generally
forced to assume it had been manufactured before the law went
into effect--and therefore, it was protected. Unless a crime
had been committed with the weapon, we could not arrest the
person or take the weapon off the streets. As a result, the
effectiveness of the assault weapons ban was not immediately
apparent to us. However, we rarely saw the kinds of mass
shootings we are seeing today.
The one notable exception was the Columbine school shooting
in 1999. The Columbine shooters used a Tec-9 assault pistol
that was banned under the assault weapons ban--but because that
particular gun had been manufactured before the law went into
effect, it was still on the market and legal to possess.
The assault weapons ban expired in 2004. Since that time,
the gun industry has continued to design and sell more and more
dangerous weapons, including AR and AK-style weapons, and
increasingly lethal handguns and shotguns. In the 1990s,
assault pistols like the Tec-9 fired 9 mm handgun rounds.
Modern AR and AK pistols, like the weapon used in Dayton and
earlier this year to kill a Milwaukee cop, fire rifle rounds.
Today, AR-15 rifles have been made more lethal with the
addition of bump stocks and 100-round magazines that result in
catastrophic mass shootings like the one in Las Vegas that we
could not imagine a single shooter orchestrating just two
decades ago. The gun industry's advertising for these weapons
frequently shows people using them in combat-style operations
to tout the military nature of these weapons.
Law enforcement is particularly concerned about handguns
that have the ability to fire rifle rounds. Rifle rounds can
penetrate body armor worn by patrol officers designed to
protect against traditional handgun ammunition. These pistols,
not unlike short-barreled rifles regulated under the National
Firearms Act, are more easily concealable than rifles but
mirror an assault rifle's capability to fire rounds quickly and
accurately with devastating lethality.
Today, we--and most importantly, law enforcement--do not
have a reliable count of how many assault weapons are in
circulation. Estimates are in the tens of millions.
Undoubtedly, however many exist in civilian hands today is
significantly higher than the number in circulation in 1994.
If our goal is to balance the rights of responsible, law-
abiding gun owners with the urgent need to keep particularly
dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals and those who
seek to do harm, as I believe it is, simply reinstating the
90s-era ban on assault weapons is not enough. Instead, we
should regulate a broader class of firearms, including assault
weapons manufactured before the law's enactment.
One option would be to require the registration of all
existing assault weapons under the National Firearms Act (NFA)
while banning the future manufacture and sale of these
firearms.
The NFA was enacted in response to violent gun crimes and
the deaths of law enforcement officers during the 1930s. The
first law of its kind, the NFA imposes an excise tax and
registration requirement to possess certain weapons, including
silencers, sawed-off shotguns, short-barreled rifles, machine
guns, pipe bombs, and other particularly dangerous firearms. In
order to possess one of these weapons, applicants must pass a
background check, provide fingerprints and a photo, pay a $200
transfer tax, and register their NFA weapon with ATF.
Using the NFA to address assault weapons would utilize an
existing and effective regulatory structure that allows law-
abiding people to legally possess these firearms, while also
addressing the public safety concerns of law enforcement and
the American public.
For more than 80 years, this regulatory system has worked
effectively: Legally owned NFA weapons are rarely used in
crime.
Semi-automatic assault weapons, including semi-automatic
rifles with detachable magazines, assault pistols, and assault
shotguns, have been used too often in too many mass shootings
to horrific ends. It is clear that the risk they pose to public
safety is far beyond that posed by traditional firearms. For
this reason, seven states and the District of Columbia ban
them. However, the efforts of those states and DC are
undermined by other states which do not have similar laws. This
is where Congress comes in: We need a nationwide law that
comprehensively addresses this danger to our communities, and
we have no time to waste.
I have built my career around the belief that it is
possible to balance rights and responsibilities. I have stood
in the face of danger to protect public safety holding an
assault weapon. It is simply unacceptable that military-style
and high-powered weapons are so readily available to civilians
today and that they increasingly lead to the loss of innocent
lives. We can and should take action to make our communities
safer from these weapons of war.
Thank you for considering my testimony today. I look
forward to your questions.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. The Ranking Member, the
gentleman from Georgia, has arrived, and we will hear his
opening statement before we begin questioning under the 5-
minute rule. The gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your
indulgence today. Thanks for holding this hearing on so-called
assault weapons. Let's hope that after today's hearing we'll
all have a better understanding of these types of rifles that
are used in committing crimes, particularly murder. I hope we
can also have an open and honest dialogue about the firearms my
colleagues wish to ban. I hope we can avoid the rhetoric that
has plagued this discussion for decades. Only when we are
equipped with the facts can we mobilize to effectively prevent
violent crime, a goal we all share.
Let's first look at the term ``assault weapon'' and when
the term entered the American lexicon. Many attributes the
invention of the term to Josh Sugarman, the boss of one of our
witnesses here today. In 1988, Mr. Sugarman stated, ``Assault
weapons, just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and
plastic firearms, are a new topic. The weapon's menacing looks,
coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic
machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons--anything
that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun--
can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions
on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision
practical uses for these weapons.''
Assault weapons, however, are not assault rifles. Assault
rifles are rapid-fire magazine-fed rifles designed for military
use. They are shoulder-fired weapons that allow a shooter to
select between settings. Semi-automatics require the operator
to pull the trigger for each shot, and fully automatic allow an
operator to hold the trigger as the gun fires continuously or
in three-shot bursts. As Mr. Sugarman's statement indicates,
the so-called assault weapons are semi-automatic. They aren't
assault rifles, and they can't be used as a full-automatic
assault rifle. Semi-automatic firearms require you to pull the
trigger each time for each shot, just as a pistol requires one
trigger pull per shot.
Unfortunately, many in the American public and the media,
and shockingly in this body, do not understand the difference.
We must understand what different firearms do and how they
function if we want to have effective laws to prevent gun
violence. I can't imagine anyone here today would advocate for
legislation that does not actually make our families safer, but
that is what I fear we are headed for.
One member of this Committee has conflated the term
``assault rifle and assault weapon multiple times'' in dear
colleague's letter seeking support for a bill banning assault
weapons. And as we dive into these conversations, let's clear
another popular misconception. The AR and AR-15 does not stand
for ``assault rifle.'' Rather, it stands for ArmaLite Model 15.
AR-15s are not assault rifles. They are semi-automatic firearms
that function similarly to hunting rifles where the operator
pulls the trigger to fire each shot. The differences between
these guns are largely cosmetic.
Sadly, disinformation comes from many sources. A State
senator from California when speaking about an assault weapon
stated, ``This right here has the ability of .30"--and this is
their term, not mine--``a 30-caliber clip''--it should be a
``magazine''--to disperse 30 bullets in a half a second.'' 30
magazines to disperse in a half second. Either that is a
blatant misrepresentation or an indication of shocking
ignorance. Even a fully automatic military-issued M-4 cannot
fire at such a rate.
Another member of the Committee stated that, ``I have held
an AR-15 in my hand. Wish I hadn't. It was as heavy as 10 boxes
that you might be moving, and the bullet that is utilized--.50-
caliber--these kinds of bullets need to be licensed and do not
need to be on the street.'' This brief statement somehow
manages to make several basic factual errors. An AR-15 weighs
between 6 and 7 pounds. It fires a 2 to 3-round of ammunition.
It does not fire .50-caliber ammunition. Anyone who knows or
discussed this about firearms would know that it is absurd to
even suggest it.
I hope that we can clear up these misconceptions in today's
hearing, but my hopes are not high. However, when we have a
Democratic presidential candidate say, ``Hell, yes, we're going
to take your AR-15,'' let's hope cooler and rational heads
prevail here today.
Finally, let's review how these so-called assault rifles
are used in crime. Some estimate and calculate the number of
assault weapons in private hands at around 10 million. In 2017,
according to the FBI, there were 403 murders committed with all
rifles, not just those deemed to be assault weapons. By
comparison, knives and cutting instruments were used in 1,591
murders. Blunt objects, clubs, hammers, bats, 467. Hands, feet
were used in 696 murders. At the same time, the National
Highway Traffic and Safety Administration found speeding killed
9,717 people, yet I do not see any of my colleagues advocating
for the prohibition of a person's possession of a vehicle
traveling more than 70 miles an hour.
My friends, if we are going to have this debate, and we
should, we must be honest with each other and take the time to
learn basic facts about the items we are looking to ban and the
result of what that might actually incur. That is not too much
to ask, and hopefully the witnesses here today an assist with
that task. With that, I yield back.
Chair Nadler. I thank the gentleman. We will now proceed
under the 5-minute Rule with questions. I will begin by
recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
Ms. Rand, there are certain features that distinguish
assault weapons from hunting rifles. Earlier this month, this
Committee reported out a bill by Representative Deutch that
would ban large-capacity magazines. During the 1994 ban, people
got around the ban by various means. How should we define an
assault rifle that we might want to ban in order to get around
the easier adaptability of such weapons by putting on various
parts or some other way?
Ms. Rand. Thank you for your question, Chair Nadler. I
think the major problem with the 1994 law is that it defined an
assault rifle, for example, by the ability to take a detachable
ammunition magazine, which is the most important, the most-
deadly feature, and then require two additional listed assault
features, such as a pistol grip or a bayonet lug. Basically,
what the industry did was take off one of the more superfluous
factors, like a bayonet lug, but they could retain the pistol
grip, which allows the shooter to have better control during
rapid fire.
So, if we go to what is known as a one-characteristics test
and clearly define those characteristics that define an assault
weapon, and assault weapons also include assault pistols and
assault shotguns, then we will be on much firmer footing.
Chair Nadler. And that would eliminate these weapons that
we commonly refer to as ``assault weapons'' and that can cause
these mass casualties.
Ms. Rand. Yes. I believe that a good definition, coupled
with an effective magazine ban--you cannot overstate the
importance of a magazine ban--would do the job to ban assault
weapons.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Mr. Chipman, assault weapons have
become the favorite weapon for many mass murderers. These
weapons are also preferred by individuals who commit crimes in
our communities. What impact did the 1994 assault weapons ban
have on improving public safety in general? What could we
expect if we repeated that in a more effective fashion?
Mr. Chipman. I think there are two things involved. First,
when looking at mass shootings, we see that 70 percent less
likely to be killed in a mass shooting during that period. When
I was at ATF, what I did see was an impact on the availability
of assault pistols, which we were seeing more daily, as a
threat to everyday gun violence on the streets, things like the
TEC-9. I think that what we would expect to see in the future
is similar declines over time, so it enhanced public safety. It
certainly didn't make the streets more dangerous, which is
often the claim if we didn't have those weapons available to
the public.
Chair Nadler. Thank you very much. Dr. Tovar, what does a
gunshot wound from an assault weapon like compared to wound
from a handgun? So, what additional challenges did you face in
the aftermath of the El Paso attack?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Again, according to my testimony, what I
was saying is that these large-caliber cartridge bullets had
serious cavitation greater than the size of my fist.
Chair Nadler. What does ``cavitation'' mean?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. That amounted to--
Chair Nadler. What does ``cavitation'' mean? What do you
mean by that?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. There is an effect, not with the bullets,
but also a temporary cavitation effect with the kind of like a
blast effect that is internal as well. With my experience with
handgun gunshot wounds, which are traveling at a lower
velocity, I see that it is straight through and through and not
as significant damage that can be readily identified, readily
fixed in the operating room. I haven't seen anything like this
before this mass shooting, and I haven't seen anything since
then.
Chair Nadler. That is because of the greater velocity of an
assault rifle bullet?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. That is my understanding, yes.
Chair Nadler. Thank you. Mayor Whaley, I commend you for
your leadership in the wake of the Dayton shooting. Beyond
physical injuries or death, what effect did the mass shooting
have on your community?
Ms. Whaley. Thank you, Chair. The effect has been long
term, particularly for the trauma that the community is dealing
with even today. Other mayors experienced this in their
communities as well, like the mayor of Pittsburgh and Parkland,
et cetera. Anytime another shooting happens in the country, the
whole community goes through the shooting again. We have seen
that already unfortunately with the Midland and Odessa
shootings. We know that the mental health work that we will
need to do will take years for us to really make sure that
people have the services they need.
This is an area of town where young people and people of
great diverse community come together. We are really concerned
that they don't have, medical access to the mental health
services they need, and we are trying to provide those even
today.
Chair Nadler. Okay. Thank you very much. My time has
expired. I recognize the Ranking Member, the gentleman from
Georgia, Mr. Collins, for his questions.
Mr. Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Muller, I have a
question. I mean, just in general, what have you heard already
this morning, some of the misconceptions that we frequently
hear in this discussion surrounding what we call so-called
assault weapons?
Ms. Muller. I will get this down before we end. Some of the
things I have heard here today is we are talking about cosmetic
things. I disagree with what I have heard today because a .22
rifle that everybody may have seen as a brown stock and
something that your father may have given you, we can turn that
into an AR platform, and it looks like an AR platform, and you
would think that this is a weapon of war. These are cosmetic
differences, and they do not make it any different--
Mr. Collins. Ms. Muller, can I stop you right there for
just a second?
Ms. Muller. Yes, sir.
Mr. Collins. You just said something, and I see this often.
Is it not true historically that all weapons come out of war,
continuing to say that this a weapon of war? All weapons come
out of war.
Ms. Muller. Correct. Well, my point is that any firearm is
lethal, is lethal force. So, our community is all about safety
and trying to educate people to how to be responsible gun
owners. We are not for--
Mr. Collins. Well, I think the issue is when you came out,
with the old flint rock, the flint, and muzzle loader. You come
into the Bolt Action with the World War I. You come out. These
were all started from a recession of protection and for
enforcement, whether it be in law enforcement or in war. The
idea that all of a sudden, they jumped from war to the streets
when they came home from World War I and they wanted to use
what they had used in World War I. That is what they used for
hunting. This is where it has progressed. Do assault rifles,
another question here, assault rifles shoot any faster than any
other semi-automatic firearm?
Ms. Muller. No, sir.
Mr. Collins. They don't. You served as a law enforcement
officer during the time of the previous assault weapon ban from
1994 to 2004. Did it have any impact on your safety as a law
enforcement officer or those that you were sworn to serve and
protect?
Ms. Muller. No, sir, I was there before, during, and after
the previous assault weapon ban. I saw zero effect, me
personally, and I believe the FBI's statistics stated that it
was ineffective. Therefore, I believe you guys let it sunset.
Mr. Collins. All right. Ms. Swearer, last week, this
Committee passed on a party line vote a red flag law. Do you
have any concerns with what this Committee reported, and if so,
what are they?
Ms. Swearer. Thank you for your question. So, I have
written fairly extensively on red flag laws, and while I agree
that there may be a place for targeted intervention for people
who are objectively dangerous, whether due to mental illness or
other reasons, there are serious concerns with policies such as
the ones that have recently come out of this body. Part of that
is a complete lack of due process.
We are talking about taking away even temporarily a
fundamental constitutional right. There need to be very high
burdens of proof. There need to be objective, narrow measures
as to what is constituting dangerousness. There need to be with
regard to things like ex parte orders, quick follow-up, not
allowing people to wait 30 days before they have their hearing
after already infringing on their constitutional rights. We
need to ensure that there are provisions for the restoration of
those rights. Things like that are vitally important, and they
are not measures that I have seen adequately imposed in many of
these bills.
Mr. Collins. I am sure you followed this from last week,
that we really took two bills, and we did what we do up here a
lot, and that is sandwich it into a same bill, and which
created a lot of problems. I think one of the issues was,
jurisdictional influence and forum shopping. Is that something
else that is concerning from what was passed out here to it
actually would solve anything that we are looking at?
Ms. Swearer. Well, so my understanding of the one that was
passed is that it would essentially be State-type grants for--
Mr. Collins. Well, it did until we added on a Federal side
of it. We actually did.
Ms. Swearer. Yeah, when we are looking at Federal type of
red flag laws, one of the big things should be followed-up are
terms of mental health treatment, ensuring that people have a
route to have their rights restored to them. So, part of the
problem is jurisdictional. You don't have that at a Federal
level the way you do at a State level. Frankly, it is not
really a Federal jurisdictional type of issue.
Mr. Collins. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the
conversation about the .22, the old .22. I can put as many
bullets down the old log and actually quick as anything else,
and it is 50 years old. It is not a brand-new gun.
Doctor, I appreciate what you do for your community. I
thank you for the unfortunate incident that you saw. As someone
who was a part of our response in Iraq, I was in the hospital
at Balad. I saw these from IEDs and everything else, and your
testimony is very compelling on this. Isn't it true also that a
.357 magnum with a hollow-point bullet or a .44 magnum with a
hollow-point bullet would also cause catastrophic damage, as
just you have seen also, from a--
Dr. Rios-Tovar. It is my understanding, yes, there is
cavitary lesions from those types of weapons as well.
Mr. Collins. So, again, I guess from your testimony on how
bad this is, if you really want to do away with what you saw,
you need to get rid of all guns, correct?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I am not advocating for anything like that.
I am just telling you what I see.
Mr. Collins. I appreciate that, but they are similar. And I
think that is the only point I was trying to make there are
similar concussions from different guns, which nobody is
talking about taking away up here, and I think they are very
similar when you look at. Thank you for your testimony. Thank
you for your work.
Mr. Deutch. [Presiding.] Ms. Lofgren?
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chair. On July 28th, a shooter
in Gilroy used a WASR arrangement semi-automatic rifle, called
a WASR-10, which is a variant of an AK-47, and he had a 75-
round drum magazine and five 40-round magazines, as he carried
out his attack. Now the sale of this firearm and high-capacity
magazines are actually banned in California, but he went over
to Nevada, bought them there, and brought them back to Gilroy.
He killed Stephen Romero, age 6, who lived in my district,
and Keyla Salazar, who was 13, who lived in my district, and
Trevor Irby, who was just 25, lived over in Santa Cruz, and he
injured 17 others, and he did that in under 60 seconds, because
the Gilroy police, who were outgunned, actually ran up to him,
and in less than a minute they shot him and then he shot and
killed himself.
So, I really am grateful to the Gilroy police officers, but
I feel a need to take action, so that you can't have a weapon
that can do so much damage in under 60 seconds, and kill
innocent people who have a right to be able to go to a family-
friendly festival and not be in fear of their lives.
After that, and Mayor, I heard your testimony about the
impact on a community. It is very real for the people who were
there, for their neighbors, for their fellow parishioners and
their friends, but really it is the whole community. The next
weekend there were family-friendly festivals that were
cancelled because people were afraid to go out in public.
So, we have created here a situation where the kind of
thing that I had growing up, where I could go to a park or a
grocery store, or walk down the street and not be afraid, that
is not the case anymore, and we have an obligation to make sure
that Americans have that same level of freedom that they had
when I was a young person, and we have failed in that. That is
why we are having this hearing today.
I was interested, Mr. Chipman, your long experience in the
whole law enforcement, weapons area. Have assault weapons
become more lethal since the expiration of the 1994 ban?
Mr. Chipman. Certainly, I have seen a big leap in assault
pistols. As I said in my opening testimony, on the streets
during the 1980s and 1990s we were facing Tec-9s that carried
handgun rounds, and now a blatant attempt to work around the
intentions of the National Firearms Act and the regulation of
short-barreled rifles, you can get AK and AR pistols, which
were not used in war. They were developed to kill people here
domestically. I don't think I know any common gun owners who
look to that as a great self-defense weapon. They fire rounds
that leave devastating wounds, and we saw that in Dayton. They
are outside the norm and they are more lethal.
Ms. Lofgren. Now I am wondering, when I think about
California and the actions taken by the State legislature and
governor to make the State safer. Do you think State laws are
sufficient, given that, as in Gilroy, the shooter can just
cross a State line and get something banned in his own State?
Mr. Chipman. We need a national comprehensive approach. I
was just out in Denver, and we are talking to people there,
focused on the issue of gun violence. Half of their crime guns
come from other states. Many of the crime guns in Chicago, that
we heard talked about earlier, are coming from states like
Indiana, and that is from firearms trafficking. If we had
comprehensive and universal laws and approaches to regulation
at the national level, there would not be this interstate
travel to go and work around the law.
It is really no different than when we had different
drinking age. Kids would go to another State to buy underage.
So, I think that is why it is important for us here to be, as
Federal authorities, making decisions for the country as a
whole.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, I thank you for that but there is a
difference, because a 19-year-old going to drink in New York is
a lot different than a 19-year-old going to Nevada and killing
children in Gilroy.
Mr. Chipman. Absolutely.
Ms. Lofgren. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Deutch. The gentlelady yields back. Mr. Chabot is
recognized.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wasn't yet a member of
this body when the 1994 gun ban was passed. I was elected that
year and sworn in the following year. As a strong supporter of
the Second Amendment, I would not have voted for that at the
time.
I would note that when the so-called assault weapons ban
was in place it 1994 to 2004, I would note, that is when the
Columbine shooting took place, right in the middle of that. I
think it was '99 if I am not mistaken. I think contrary to the
majority's belief, there is really no conclusive evidence that
the weapons ban had any appreciable effect on mass shootings or
violent crime.
Ms. Swearer, would you want to comment on that? Is that
you're understanding as well?
Ms. Swearer. Thank you, Congressman. That is my
understanding and that was the understanding of those who
released the official report after the ban expired. What they
actually found was that should it be renewed it would be
unlikely to have any meaningful or measurable effect, in part,
because as I noted previously, these types of firearms are
rarely used to commit crimes in the first place. It is actually
handguns and non-assault weapons that are historically, and
still to this day, most often used to commit crimes.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Ms. Muller, you served as a law
enforcement officer in, I believe, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Is that
correct?
Ms. Muller. Yes, sir.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you for your service. When you were a law
enforcement officer, that was during the assault weapons ban
when that was in place. Is that correct?
Ms. Muller. Before, during, and after.
Mr. Chabot. Okay. Given your experience, would you agree
with Ms. Swearer relative to whether there is any evidence that
we were any safer as a society, as a community, when that was
in place, or what are your thoughts about that?
Ms. Muller. Yes, I would agree with her. Personally,
professionally, it had zero impact on me. I saw no difference
before, during, or after the beginning or the end of the
assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you. Ms. Muller, could you describe some
of the misconceptions that you frequently hear when it comes to
the discussion surrounding so-called assault weapons?
Ms. Muller. One of the things, when we talk about weapon of
war, I hear it being a weapon of war. First, anything can be
used as a weapon when you are in battle, I suppose. An AR-15,
specifically, I have friends that have served in combat roles
and they have told me that is not a desirable round. They do
not like the AR-15, the .223 or the 5.56. This is their
personal opinion, but they would much prefer to carry a .308 or
something with greater stopping power.
Mr. Chabot. Okay. Thank you. The guns that we are
discussing here this morning, do people use these to hunt? Do
they use them for self-defense? They suitable for both? Could
you comment on that?
Ms. Muller. Yes, sir. We certainly use them in my family.
We use them for both. I will have to be the law-abiding citizen
that does have a pistol AR, and I choose that because it is
more compact, and it does give me the greater capacity. It is
just a better defensive firearm, and it fits better in my car,
in my vehicle, that I am traveling in. So, it is a little bit
easier to move around, but I get the same advantages of the AR.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much.
Ms. Swearer let me go back to you, if I could. What do you
believe are the major motivations behind the mass shootings
that we have seen, and it is your opinion that we ought to be
focused on what is actually causing these things, as opposed
what we are focused on here today?
Ms. Swearer. Congressman, that is absolutely my opinion,
and it is very clear when you look at mass public shooters,
what you see is much higher rates of untreated, serious mental
illness. So, people who--like one-fourth of mass public
shooters have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness or,
as two-thirds of them have, what you are actually seeing is
people who are not in a mentally stable place, even if they
haven't been officially diagnosed with any sort of mental
illness.
These are, by and large, individuals who are not in a good
mental place or showing clear signs of being a danger to
themselves or others, where there is room for intervention with
them. So, that is one of the avenues we have to look at, is how
do we actually treat those underlying problems and intervene in
an effective, narrow way, specifically for those dangerous
individuals.
Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much. My time has expired, Mr.
Chair.
Mr. Deutch. The gentleman yields back. Mr. Cohen is
recognized.
Mr. Cohen. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me ask Mr. Chipman, as
a former IACP person myself, as a legal advisor a long time
ago, these weapons are made by lots of companies. Is that not
correct?
Mr. Chipman. That is correct.
Mr. Cohen. So, is Colt the exclusive manufacturer of AR-
15s?
Mr. Chipman. No, they are not. We have a variety of ways
that you can acquire an AR-15 model. There are imported ones.
Mr. Cohen. Colt has decided not to produce anymore,
manufacture anymore. Is that right?
Mr. Chipman. They describe the market as flooded, and it is
my belief that it is flooded by foreign-made ARs, and the
ability to make one your own now.
Mr. Cohen. Are some of those--would any of those be coming
from Russia?
Mr. Chipman. The Russian model that I am familiar with
would be more an AK variant.
Mr. Cohen. AK-47?
Mr. Chipman. Yep.
Mr. Cohen. Are they sold here?
Mr. Chipman. They are not only sold here, but they are also
now manufactured in this country, if you are talking about
Kalashnikov.
Mr. Cohen. How long have they been manufactured here?
Mr. Chipman. I don't--I am not certain.
Mr. Cohen. Okay. A few years ago, I was in Russia, maybe
three years ago, and there was an effort then, by the Russian
government, to try to change our policies and get more
Kalashnikovs sold in this country. Do you know what they would
have been trying to do? This was before the election of
President Trump. I was there during Obama's term.
Mr. Chipman. I am aware that companies like Kalashnikov
found it advantageous to build the guns here in America to not
have to deal with some other import issues.
Mr. Cohen. was there a restriction on them, manufacturing
here?
Mr. Chipman. I am not aware.
Mr. Cohen. Okay. Do you know anything that has happened
during the Trump Administration that might have benefitted
Kalashnikov?
Mr. Chipman. I am not.
Mr. Cohen. Okay. Do know the official position of the IACP
on assault weapons?
Mr. Chipman. For many years they have opposed and supported
a ban on assault weapons.
Mr. Cohen. Why is that?
Mr. Chipman. I think, first, as a law enforcement
organization, they saw a threat to law enforcement, and also
were responding to these scenes. We are, I think, 200 off-duty
officers were in Las Vegas being shot at. I know there were ATF
agents. We have families too. So, I think it comes from a place
that police are Members of our communities and they want to do
a good job and keep streets safe. These are particularly lethal
and threatening when in the wrong hands.
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chipman, how can you say that with a
straight face when you realize that one good man with a gun
could take out that person?
Mr. Chipman. Yeah. I was trained to be that person, and I
think that is a big myth. I think the first thing I learned
when I was trained with Secret Service is, well, you don't have
enough time to pull your gun. You need to get in the way of the
bullet and get shot. So, I think that is what we see, is the
reality is that any time you are responding to a shooting, a
lot has happened very badly, and we can't have national policy
relying on winning gunfights. We need to focus on preventing
them.
Mr. Cohen. I appreciate you recognizing my sarcasm.
Chief Brackney, do you also agree, in your group, that
assault weapons should not be sold in this country?
Chief Brackney. Absolutely, and what actually is
disingenuous is that we are arguing about terminology. When you
looking down the face of a high-powered, high-velocity weapon,
do you really want to ask is it an AR or an AK, and can you
pull it one trigger at a time or is it a semi-automatic, or is
it something more?
I also say the same thing is when we are talking about,
even arguing, pushing back against a ``the only person who
should stop a bad person with gun is a good person with a
gun,'' actually what stops a bad person with a gun is keeping a
gun out of their hands to start with.
[Applause.]
Chief Brackney. Ask that from any law enforcement officer
who has ever had to look down the face of a barrel. Go tell
that to their families, their widows, their widowers, their
children. Tell that to the community and the persons from all
these mass shootings that we are going to argue about
definitions versus the impact that it is having on our
communities.
Mr. Cohen. I know this hearing is about assault weapons,
which is extremely important, but there is also armor-piercing
bullets. Do you also agree that armor-piercing bullets have no
place in our society?
Chief Brackney. Absolutely. They are actually dubbed ``cop
killers,'' is originally how they were put out on the streets,
and that is because they could pierce through our bulletproof--
our protective gear, our personal protective equipment. So
absolutely, and the organizations that I represent, and I am a
part of PERF, IACP, NOBLE, and all of the other ones--we stand
firmly behind that there is no place in society for the type of
weapons that can do the type of damage to not only law
enforcement but to the community at large.
Mr. Cohen. Mr. Chipman, do you agree with that is the IACP
position?
Mr. Chipman. Yeah, absolutely, and there is ammo to defeat
armor, like military armor, and then there are rifle rounds
that defeat ballistic vests we wear, typically rated to defend
against handgun rounds.
Mr. Cohen. I thank each of you for your testimony, your
service, and I stand with the police and the sheriff's
department and not with the NRA.
Mr. Deutch. The gentleman yields back.
[Applause.]
Mr. Deutch. Mr. Sensenbrenner is recognized.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Mr. Chair, thank you. You know, I would
disagree with what has been said here, because one of the
problems we had last time--and I was here when this was
passed--was making proper definitions. So, if we want to
achieve this goal, we have to have those definitions done
correctly.
Now I have heard a lot of the arguments on this, and a lot
of it revolves around what the firearm looks like rather how
the firearm works. It seems to me that the problem is how the
firearm works.
Now fully automatic, military-style rifles have been
illegal for somebody to buy since the '30s, except with a very,
very hard-to-get permit from the ATF. Rifles that are semi-
automatic are legal for hunting in most, if not all, states. I
haven't got this up to date yet, but there are a lot of semi-
automatic hunting rifles that State DNRs or Fish and Game
regulators feel are sporting rifles.
I don't think we have any business here taking away hunting
rifles from people who are not disqualified from owning them
and people who think that hunting is a good sport. I am not a
hunter, so I don't go out and sit in the cold during the deer-
hunting season. Let's define this correctly.
I would like to ask, you know, some of the people who
support banning, quote, ``assault rifles,'' tell me, do you
think that hunting rifles ought to be banned if they are semi-
automatic?
Let's start with you, Mayor Whaley.
Ms. Whaley. Thank you, Representative. My point here today
is just to reiterate that constitutional rights require a
responsibility and balance, and the people of Dayton also have
the right to be safe.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Can you give me a yes or no answer on
whether hunting rifles ought to be banned, if we don't define
this correctly?
Ms. Whaley. I think that this body will define this
correctly, and I think that will have--
Mr. Sensenbrenner. What is your opinion? Not that--you are
asking what our opinion is.
Dr. Tovar, we got no answer from Mayor Whaley on whether
hunting rifles ought to be banned, so let the record State
that. Dr. Tovar?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. So, the question is should hunting rifles
be banned?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Yes.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Is that the question?
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Yes.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I agree that there should be a definition
of what a so-called assault rifle is, a so-called weapon that--
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Just answer the question. If you have
this definition of a semi-automatic firearm that looks bad
because it has got shoulder thing and people can put--I don't
own any firearms so I am not defining this correctly. But, I
was not elected to sit here and tell people who like to hunt
that all of a sudden, the firearm that they have been using
legally, according to State DNR regulations, ends up being
banned because we, in Congress, think it should be.
Should we write a definition that is so broad that hunting
rifles will be banned? Yes or no.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I think a definition should be made in
terms of what should be legal and what should not.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Well, you are not answering the
question.
Chief Brackney, yes or no.
Chief Brackney. Thank you for the question. I believe any
weapon that can be used to hunt individuals should be banned.
[Applause.]
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Well, that is not what the Virginia DNR
says.
Ms. Rand?
Ms. Rand. We think that you can clearly distinguish assault
rifles from sporting, hunting rifles, and just because you can
hunt with an AR-15 does not make it a hunting rifle. Having
said that, we do not support a ban on true hunting rifles.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay. Well, we will put that down as a
question mark.
Ms. Swearer?
Ms. Swearer. If the question is whether hunting rifles
should be banned just because they are semi-automatic, the
answer is no, and I would point out that, again, when we are
talking about functional difference between hunting rifles and
assault weapons, we are not talking about lethality and we are
not talking about caliber. We are talking about things like
pistol grips and barrel shrouds that don't change the
functional mechanics.
So, I would say no, we shouldn't be banning hunting rifles
just because they have pistol groups and are easier to use.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. Okay. Ms. Muller, and my time will be
up.
Ms. Muller. No.
Mr. Sensenbrenner. I yield back.
Mr. Deutch. The gentleman's time has expired.
[Applause.]
Mr. Deutch. I would like to briefly address the Members of
the audience in the hearing room. We welcome and respect your
right to be here. We also, in turn, ask for your respect as we
proceed with the business of the committee, and it is the
intention of the Committee to proceed with this hearing without
disruptions, and we ask everyone to respect that.
Mr. Cicilline, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for holding
the first hearing on assault weapons in 20 years.
There is a reason why assault weapons have become the
weapon of choice for mass killers. They are weapons of war
designed to kill as many people as possible in as short a time
as possible.
On August 4th, a shooter used a lawfully purchased AR-15-
style assault rifle to take the lives of 9 people and injury 27
more people in less than a minute in Dayton, Ohio. Just one day
earlier, a gunman legally purchased an AK-47-style rifle and
within minutes killed 22 people and injured 27 in a Walmart in
El Paso. On July 28, 2019, a gunman legally purchased an
assault weapon weeks before killing 3 people and wounding 12
people at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California, with police
on the scene in under a minute.
In each of these shootings, despite the quick response
times and heroic efforts of law enforcement and first
responders, 34 people were killed within a week's time and 60
more people injured, and this does not even begin to account
for the mental health consequences that these shootings have on
survivors and the impacted communities.
I want to welcome all of the wonderful advocates who are
here, the family Members who have lost loved ones to gun
violence and thank you for being here, and for being such a
powerful voice in this debate. I particularly want to honor
Mayor Whaley and thank her for her graceful and strong
leadership in a very difficult time.
I reintroduced H.R. 1296, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2019,
to address the harm that mass shootings have on our communities
and to keep the American people safe from senseless acts of
violence. This bipartisan legislation, with 211 co-sponsors,
prohibits the sale, transfer, manufacturing, and importation of
semi-automatic weapons and ammunition-feeding devices capable
of accepting more than 10 rounds, while protecting hunting and
sporting rifles and assault weapons used by Members of the
military and law enforcement.
There are 215 weapons that are exempted in the bill that
are sporting rifles and hunting rifles. So, this notion that we
are going to ban hunters is false. Had the legislation been
passed and signed into law, it would have prevented the
tragedies we witnessed in Dayton, El Paso, and Gilroy.
If you listen to my Republican colleagues on this Committee
you would think the assault weapons ban is some radical idea
that has never been done before. The truth is it was the law
for 10 years, from 1994 to 2004. It passed the House with 38
Republican votes. It worked, and no law-abiding American lost
their guns.
In mass shootings, 63 percent more people were killed when
shooters used assault weapons or high-capacity weapons rather
than other types of firearms, and during the 10-year period of
the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, mass shooting fatalities were 70
percent less likely than when the ban was in place. With a ban
it is less likely that Americans will be killed while at their
favorite band concert, while hanging out a bar with friends,
while praying at their places of worship, while simply going to
school.
Instead of attacking the problem of mass shootings head-on,
we are building schools with curved hallways to minimize
casualties from an active shooter, and we are sending our kids
off to school with bulletproof backpacks. This is sickening. We
have an opportunity to do something. We have a solution, one
that worked and made a real difference.
I am going to ask you, Ms. Rand, if you look at this 2016
study by Professor Klarevas of the University of Massachusetts
at Boston, he analyzed data on every gun massacre where six or
more people were shot and killed, for 50 years, to analyze
whether the 10-year-old Federal ban on assault weapons had any
effect on massacres. As you can see, when the ban lapsed in
2004, the numbers of gun massacres shot up, with a 183 percent
increase in massacres, 34 massacre incidents, and a 239 percent
increase in massacre deaths.
So, does that establish, in fact, the effectiveness of the
assault weapons ban?
Ms. Rand. Well, I think that the 1994 ban definitely had a
chilling effect on the industry. It was able to evade the law
in certain ways, and your bill addresses all those things that
the industry does. So, your bill would be even more effective.
We know, from the statistics, that there clearly was a
reduction in mass shootings, and since the ban lapsed, the
industry has only become more and more and more aggressive.
One point I would like to make about the increasing
lethality, is the huge increase in the capacity of magazines.
We very seldom saw 75-round, 100-round magazines. We see those
all the time now.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Ms. Rand, and that, of course,
the legislation I propose has the one characteristic that you
previously spoke about.
Ms. Rand. Yes.
Mr. Cicilline. Chief Brackney, on August 14th of this year,
six police officers in Philadelphia were shot during an eight-
hour standoff with a gunman using an AR-15. According to the
Violence Policy Center, in 2016, one in four police officers
killed in the line of duty was killed by an assault weapon, and
in attacks on law enforcement that resulted in multiple police
fatalities assault weapons killed 75 percent of those officers.
In your opinion, would an assault weapons ban assist law
enforcement with protecting themselves and communities from gun
violence?
Chief Brackney. Absolutely, and what we also want to
consider is these open carry states. It is much easier to
identify a person who has an illegal weapon if they are not
allowed to have one to start. I wouldn't have to make the
distinction whether it is a good person with a gun or a bad
person with a gun. I absolutely support it. Thank you.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have several
unanimous consent requests. The first is a letter of support
for the assault weapons ban signed by nearly 150 organizations,
including the Newtown Action Alliance and the Brady Campaign.
Mr. Deutch. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
?
MR. CICILLINE FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN
President Donald Trump, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW,
Washington, DC 20500
Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, 317 Russell Senate
Office Building, Washington, DC 20S10
Senator Majority WHIP, John Thune, United States Senate,
SD-511, Washington, DC 20510
Senate Minority Leader, Charles Schumer, 322 Hart Senate
Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
Senate Judiciary Chair, Lindsey Graham, 290 Russell Senate
Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 1236 Longworth House Office
Building, Washington, DC 20510
House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, 1705 Longworth House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, 2468 Rayburn House
Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
House Judiciary Chair, Jerry Nadler, 2132 Rayburn House
Office Building, WashingTon, DC 20510
CC: All Members of 116th Congress
Dear President Trump, Speaker Pelosi, Leader McConnell,
Leader Hoyer, Leader Schumer, Leader Thune, Leader McCarthy,
Chair Graham, and Chair Nadler,
Too many Americans are being senselessly gunned down in
public spaces in towns and cities across the nation.
With easy access to military-style semi-automatic assault
weapons, bump stocks, and high capacity ammunition magazines,
too many individuals have turned our schools, malls, concerts,
movie theaters, stores, restaurants, nightclubs, food
festivals, streets, workplaces, and places of worship into war
zones filled with terror, devastation, and terrible loss. These
weapons of war are also placing our law enforcement in grave
danger as FBI data shows 1 in 4 law enforcement killed in the
line of duty are killed with military-style semi-automatic
assault weapons.
Military-style semi-automatic assault weapons are designed
to efficiently kill as many people as possible in the shortest
amount of time available.
On July 20, 2012, a 24-year-old White male killed 12 people
and injured 70 others (58 from gunfire) with assault weapons
and high-capacity magazines inside a Century 16 movie theater
in Aurora, Colorado.
On December 14, 2012, a 20-year-old White male killed 26
children and educators with an AR-15 and high-capacity
magazines in less than five minutes at Sandy Hook Elementary
School in Newtown, Connecticut.
On December 2, 2015, a homegrown extremist couple killed 14
people and 22 others with assault weapons and high-capacity
magazines in an attack at the Inland Regional Center in San
Bernardino, California.
On June 12, 2016, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49
people and injured 53 others with an assault weapon and high-
capacity magazines in an attack targeting LGBTQI community
inside the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
On June 3, 2017, gunmen armed with AK-47s trafficked
illegally into Mexico killed 6 people and wounded 22 others at
Chicho's Bar in Chihuahua City in Northern Mexico.
On October 1, 2017, a 64-year-old White male killed 58
people and wounded 851 (422 by gunfire) with an AR-15, bump
stocks, and high-capacity magazines at the Route 91 Harvest
Music Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada.
On November 5, 2017, a 26-year-old White male, with
domestic violence history and dismissed from the U.S. Air
Force, killed 26 people (including an unborn baby) and wounded
2 others with an assault weapon and high capacity magazines
inside the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
On February 14, 2018, a 19-year-old White male killed 17
students and educators and injured 17 others with an AR-15 and
high-capacity magazines at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland, Florida.
On April 22, 2018, a 29-year-old male killed 4 people and
injured 2 others with an AR-15 and high-capacity magazines at
the Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee.
On October 27, 2018, a 46-year-old anti-Semitic White male
killed 11 people and injured six others with an assault weapon
and high-capacity magazines at the Tree of Life Synagogue in
the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
On April 19, 2019, unidentified gunmen killed 14 people,
including an infant boy, and wounded three others with AR-15s
and AK-47s illegally trafficked into Mexico, at a family party
in Minatitlan, Veracruz in Mexico.
On May 3, 1, 2019, a 40-year-old disgruntled city employee
killed 12 people and injured 4 others fatally with an assault
weapon and high capacity magazines in a municipal building in
Virginia Beach, Virginia.
On June 18, 2019, a group of gunmen attacked a Mexican army
patrol and killed 4 people and wounded 10 others using AK-47s
illegally trafficked into Mexico, in Tlacotepec in the southern
Mexican State of Guerrero.
On Sunday, July 28, 2019, a 19-year-old male killed 3
people and injured 13 others with an AK-47-type assault rifle
and high-capacity magazines at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in
Gilroy, California.
On Saturday, August 3, 2019, a 21-year-old male with White
supremacist ideation killed 22 people, including eight Mexican
citizens, and injured 24 others with an AK-47-style assault
rifle, high-capacity magazines and 8M3 ammunition in Walmart in
El Paso, Texas.
On Saturday, August 3, 2019, a 24-year-old male killed 9
people and injured 31 others with a legally purchased 223-
caliber rifle and 100-round drum magazines in 24 seconds
outside a nightclub at a nightlife district in downtown Dayton,
Ohio.
On August 31, 2019, a 36-year-old male traveling between
the Texas cities of Odessa and Midland in a vehicle used an AR-
15 type assault weapon purchased in a private sale to kill 8
people and injure 25 including 3 police officers and a 17-
month-old girl.
There is absolutely no reason for weapons of war-assault
rifles, assault pistols, and assault shotguns-to be sold on the
civilian market. In 2004, Congress and President Bush failed to
reauthorize and strengthen the 1994 federal assault weapons ban
which enabled their use in Aurora, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino,
Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, Pittsburgh,
Nashville, and Thousand Oaks mass shooting incidents in
America. Now, the Gilroy, El Paso and Dayton families and
communities are reeling.
Unless you take immediate action to regulate assault
weapons, high-capacity magazines, and bump stocks then the
scope of death and destruction caused by weapons of war will
continue to escalate and Americans and Mexicans will continue
to live in fear.
We are presenting a petition signed by over 250,000
Americans calling on the President and Congress to demand that
you Act now to stop the carnage with an effective federal ban
on the civilian use of assault weapons, high-capacity
magazines, and bump stocks. H.R. 1296 and S. 66 Assault Weapons
Ban of 2019 are ready for a hearing and a vote. NOW is the time
to act!
Thank you. Sincerely,
American Federation of Teachers
Amnesty lnternational USA
Arizonans for Gun Safety
Avaaz
Ban Assault Weapons Now!
Bishops United Against Gun Violence
Brady
Catholic Religious Community, NY
Ceasefire Oregon
CeaseFire Pennsylvania
Center of Ecumenical Studies
Centro de Estudios
CEO Pipe Organs/Golden Ponds Farm
Change the Ref
Chester Community Coalition
Children's Defense Fund
Citizens for Peace
Coalition Against Gun Violence
Coalition Against Gun Violence, a Santa Barbara County
Coalition
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
Colorado Ceasefire
Courage Campaign
CT Against Gun Violence
Delaware Coalition Against Gun Violence
Democracy Action Marin
Disciples Home Missions, Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ) denomination
Docs Demand Action
Doctors for America
Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt, NY
Dubuque Coalition for Nonviolence
Ebony's Hope
Ecumenicos a.c./Center of Ecumenicos Studies, Mexico City
Episcopal Peace Fellowship
Falmouth Gun Safety Coalition
Fellowship for Today
Franciscan Action Network
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Friends of Michigan Animals Rescue
Gays Against Guns
Georgia Alliance for Social Justice
Georgia Rural Urban Summit and others
Georgians for Gun Safety
Global Exchange
Grandmothers Against Gun Violence, Cape Cod
Greater Lansing Network Against War & Injustice
Greenpeace, U.S.
Gun Violence Prevention Action Committee
Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah
Guns Down for America
Gunsense Vermont
Herd on the Hill
Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence
Huntington Woods Peace, Citizenship, & Action Project
International Health & Epidemiology Research Center
Iowans for Gun Safety
Joint Action Committee
Journey 4ward
Jr. Newtown Action Alliance
Lansing UN Association
Latin America Working Group
Lift Every Voice Oregon
Long Island Activists
Long Islanders for Gun Safety
MA Coalition to Prevent Gun
Violence Steering Committee
March For Our Lives
March For Our Lives, DC
March For Our Lives, Maine
March For Our Lives, Minnesota
March For Our Lives, New Hampshire
March for Our Lives, Texas
March for Our Lives, Hebron, CT
Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence
Michigan Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence
Michigan Unitarian, Universalist Social Justice Network
(MUUSJN)
Million Hoodies Movement for Justice
Missionary Sisters of Immaculate Conception
MomsRising
Mt. Vernon Unitarian Church
NALC
Nassau NOW
National Council of Jewish Women
National Education Association
National Equality Action Team (NEAT)
National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund
Nebraskans Against Gun Violence
New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence
Newtown Action Alliance
NoRA
North Carolina Council of Churches
North Carolinians Against Gun Violence
Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence
Orange Ribbons for Gun Safety
Pax Christi Michigan
Peace Action of Michigan
Physicians for the Prevention of Gun Violence
Physicians of Social Responsibility
Pride Fund to End Gun Violence
Programa Casa Refugiados, Mexico City
Psychiatrists for Gun Violence Prevention
Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association
Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence
Safe Places Alliance
Safe Tennessee Project
San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention
School Sisters of St Francis, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities,
Syracuse, New York
Srs. of St. Joseph of Carondelet, Los Angeles, California
St. Bonaventure Province
St. Marks Episcopal Church, Capitol Hill, DC
States United to Prevent Gun Violence
Stop Handgun Violence
Suffolk Progressives
Survivors Empowered Action Fund
Survivors Lead
The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus
The Connecticut Effect
The ENOUGH Campaign
The Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence
This Is Our Lane
UltraViolet
Unitarian Universalist Faith Action, New Jersey
Urban Word, NYC
UUPLAN Unitarian
Universalist PA Legislative Action Network
Violence Policy Center
Vision Quilt
Vote Like a Mother
Washington Ceasefire
WAVE Educational Fund
We the People for Sensible Gun Laws
Wheaton Franciscan Sisters
Woman's National Democratic Club
Women Against Gun Violence
Women's March
Women's Voices Raised for Social Justice
Mr. Cicilline. I ask unanimous consent to have a report, a
study by the Violence Policy Center that shows one in four law
enforcement officers slain in the line of duty by an assault
weapon.
Mr. Deutch. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. CICILLINE FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cicilline. I ask unanimous consent that this report of
a 2018 study published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care
Surgery, which found that mass fatalities were 70 percent less
likely to occur during the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, period.
Mr. Deutch. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. CICILLINE FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cicilline. An article reflecting a poll by Morning
Consult showing 70 percent of Americans, including the majority
of Republicans, support an assault weapons ban.
Mr. Deutch. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. CICILLINE FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cicilline. Finally, a Fox News poll that shows 67
percent of Americans support an assault weapons ban.
Mr. Deutch. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
MR. CICILLINE FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Mr. Deutch. The gentleman yields back.
[Disturbance in hearing room.]
Mr. Deutch. Another reminder for the audience that while we
appreciate your being here, we request that you refrain from
making any noise or otherwise disrupting the proceedings, or,
like the last gentleman, Capitol Police will remove you from
the audience so that we can return to order.
Mr. Buck, you are recognized.
Mr. Buck. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Whaley, you mentioned
in your opening statement that the shooter in Dayton was
neutralized by the police. Was the shooter killed by police?
Ms. Whaley. Yes, Representative.
Mr. Buck. Was he killed with a gun or several guns?
Ms. Whaley. Several guns.
Mr. Buck. Okay. Mr. Chipman, would you agree with me that
most gun violence is caused--I am sorry--that most violence is
caused by handguns, most gun violence is caused by handguns?
Mr. Chipman. Most criminal gun violence, a handgun is used
in that violence.
Mr. Buck. Would you also agree with me--first of all, let
me thank you for your 25 years of experience with the ATF. I
spent 15 years as a Federal prosecutor, 10 years as a district
attorney, worked many times with ATF, and appreciated their
hard work.
Would you also agree with me that gang and gang Members are
responsible for upwards of 90 percent of all violent crimes in
this country, and nationwide, 80 percent of all gun-related
homicides in the U.S. are caused by gang Members?
Mr. Chipman. That conflicts with all the information I
have.
Mr. Buck. Have you ever used Gang Database while you were
with the ATF?
Mr. Chipman. Sure.
Mr. Buck. Did you find Gang Database reliable?
Mr. Chipman. It depends on what I was looking for.
Mr. Buck. Gang affiliation?
Mr. Chipman. Yeah, the gang affiliation is a very loose
term that law enforcement can label people. Again, my hesitancy
is that there was nothing in my 25-year experience at ATF that
suggests that 90 percent of gun crime is tied to gangs, nothing
at all.
Mr. Buck. I asked you about gang affiliation but let me ask
you about the NICS database. Are you familiar with the NICS
database?
Mr. Chipman. Yes, I am.
Mr. Buck. Have you ever run across a false positive in a
NICS database, meaning someone who has been identified as a
prohibited person because of a prior felony or other reason,
and yet the database indicated that this particular person who
attempted to purchase a gun was prohibited, and they were not
prohibited?
Mr. Chipman. Yes, very rarely.
Mr. Buck. Okay. But it happens.
Mr. Chipman. It has happened.
Mr. Buck. Okay. Ms. Swearer could we put a picture up
please? Ms. Swearer, my question to you is, approximately how
many AR-15s are owned in America?
Ms. Swearer. So, there is no precise estimate, but if we
are talking about the AR-15 semi-automatic general rifle
platform of that nature, estimates are at least several million
into upwards of 16 to 18 million.
Mr. Buck. Upwards of 16 to 18 million. And approximately
how many have been used in mass shootings in the last decade,
for example?
Ms. Swearer. Probably several dozen. I--
Mr. Buck. Several dozen. Okay.
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. So, several dozen minus the 16 to 18 million, my
Democrat friends are suggesting that those law-abiding citizens
have those weapons taken away from them. Is that correct?
Ms. Swearer. That is my understanding. Yes, sir.
Mr. Buck. Okay. Do you see the AR-15 that I am holding with
a former member of the Judiciary Committee, Trey Gowdy, from
South Carolina?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir, I do.
Mr. Buck. Can you tell, by looking at that gun, if that gun
has ever killed anybody?
Ms. Swearer. No, I cannot.
Mr. Buck. Why is that?
Ms. Swearer. Frankly, I don't know who is holding it. I
don't know its history. If I had to guess, based on statistics
alone, there is a very, very high chance it has never been used
to kill an innocent human being.
Mr. Buck. Along with the 16 to 18 million guns that are in
circulation in America right now.
Ms. Swearer. That is correct. The vast majority of them
will never be used in criminal actions.
Mr. Buck. Are those individuals--and let me just tell you,
from my experience in my district in Eastern Colorado, an AR-15
is used to kill raccoons or foxes or other animals that are
predators and trying to disturb individuals for trying to kill
chickens or are disturbing agriculture in some way. Is that
your understanding and, I am not saying a majority of that 16
to 18 million, are some of those guns used?
Ms. Swearer. Yes. It is actually not suitable for a lot of
higher-end hunting for larger game because it is actually more
suitable for, as you inferred, more varmint hunting, small
predator hunting.
Mr. Buck. Okay. And what would the effect, Ms. Muller, of
this particular law that we are discussing now have on law-
abiding citizens in terms of either using weapons to protect
domestic animals or farm animals, or for self-defense? What
would the effect be for those 16 to 18 million that we have
just identified with Ms. Swearer.
Ms. Muller. It would criminalize us having the firearm that
we choose to use, that as Ms. Swearer said, her mother was able
to use accurately. I don't understand some of the conversation
that we are having about making it more difficult for the 100
million people that might have these weapons, make it more
difficult for them to control or use properly.
Mr. Buck. I yield back.
Mr. Deutch. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Richmond, you are recognized.
Mr. Richmond. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I don't necessarily
profess to be an expert in hunting varmint, but my general
sense is that if you hit them with an AK-15 you are not hunting
them, you are killing them, and that is the only purpose of
doing it.
Let me just get two things straight with Ms. Swearer and
Ms. Muller. Both of you all mentioned that the purpose you see,
especially with your mother and her choosing her firearm, was
accuracy and stopping power. So, when you describe
characteristics for self-defense you would characterize
stopping power and accuracy as primary objectives?
Ms. Muller. Yes, sir.
Ms. Swearer. Yes. If I have a threat, I want it to stop.
Mr. Richmond. Okay. Now let me go to Chief Brackney really
quick, with NOBLE. Let's take the gun, the FN Five-Seven, for
example, which has zero knockdown power, but its bullets will
go through your shield, if you have an armor shield, and your
vest. If it has zero stopping power, what self-defense purpose
does that gun, the FN Five-Seven, have?
Chief Brackney. It would not. When you think about stopping
power and the risk of being on the other end or the receiving
end of those high-velocity, high-capacity rounds, and things
that can go through them, you want to think about accuracy.
I do appreciate the story about a mom having the ability to
be very accurate and to have a very tight capacity and putting
rounds in a place. So, think of the damage that if my mom, who
is 78, God bless her, if she decided she wanted to be extremely
accurate, what about the person who is very well-intentioned?
How accurate could they be? How quickly could they be and the
damage that they could do, very well-intentioned?
Mr. Richmond. Let me also ask, because I know that our law
enforcement every day stop people who are citizens of the
United States but who also answer to another calling and cause
called sovereign citizen. If we just take my district, since I
have been in Congress, I have lost five officers who were
overpowered by perpetrators because they were better-armed than
my police officers, one of which was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
both within--we can argue over assault rifle, how we determine
it.
Let's just, for purpose of this hearing, call them weapons
of mass destruction, because there are three officers in Baton
Rouge whose families will never see them again, and two in St.
John Parish, who will never see them again, because in St. John
Parish it was a traffic stop that initiated, and sovereign
citizen does not recognize law enforcement's ability to stop
them. So, they exited the car with the trailer, with an assault
weapon, ambushed the officers, and they never had a chance.
If we go to Baton Rouge, the officers responded to the
call, knew the perpetrator was dangerous, but they had
handguns. He had a long gun, wearing body armor, and they never
stood a chance.
So, in the sense of patrolling--and I guess I am trying to
make a balance in between that need for a weapon of mass
destruction and the need for self-defense, because I think of
my family. When I thought about my family not being necessarily
the best in marksmanship, I thought about having a shotgun
which has a wide spray. Then there is a gun called ``The
Judge,'' which is a--could fire a .357 bullet--it is revolve--
or it could fire a shotgun shell, which is great for self-
defense.
The question becomes, why such large-capacity magazines on
these assault weapons and assault rifles, if we are talking
about hunting? When you hunt, you miss, you load up again, you
try again. If your goal is mass carnage, then you just keep
pulling your trigger, or you install a bump stock and you can
create multiple carnage.
So, from a law enforcement standpoint, I am trying to
figure out, for the home, self-defense, are we really talking
about self-defense when are talking about these weapons of mass
destruction? God forbid, if you lived in an apartment complex
or a community with attached homes, how the bullets will go
through the walls and travel apartment after apartment after
apartment, if you have the wrong one.
So, in your law enforcement estimate, does the self-defense
argument hold water when you are talking about weapons that
shoot such high-velocity projectiles and has such large-
capacity magazines?
Chief Brackney. Thank you for that. In 2009, in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, April 4th, a domestic case, an individual had a
weapon for protection in their home. Three officers responded
to that domestic because a dog urinated on the floor. When they
arrived, immediately open fired ambush. I lived three homes
down from that killing. The person, perpetrator, shot the
officers immediately in the face as soon as they opened the
door. That went through their vest. He then proceeded, with his
high-powered weapon to shoot the second officer, who he thought
he was playing possum. He then shot him in his face, leaving
that officer a widow and two small children.
An off-duty officer was responding from around the corner.
He then got out of his car. He unloaded approximately 30 rounds
into that officer, who laid dying on the street, as we
exchanged over 600 rounds. We were out-gunned, out-fired, out-
firepowered at that time.
That weapon was supposed to be for his protection of his
home. It was definitely used as an assault weapon to murder
three officers in the City of Pittsburgh. That city has been
traumatized. I mean, it has been 10 years, exactly, to this
date. Thank you.
Mr. Richmond. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. [Presiding.] Thank you. The time of the
gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Texas.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mayor, I was curious. You had indicated in your testimony
that you are here basically to ask us to do something. What
bill would you like to be passed to effectively, in your words,
do something?
Ms. Whaley. Well, there are a number of bills that are
before you.
Mr. Gohmert. What would be your favorite?
Ms. Whaley. Well, I would first, for this body, I think
that the Assault Weapons Ban bill that Representative Cicilline
has put forward is very thoughtful and should move forward.
That bill would affect the Dayton shooting, frankly, and so it
would make a great difference, so there won't be cities like
Dayton that have experienced this kind of a trauma.
Mr. Gohmert. Okay. I appreciate that. It is just, what you
hear people, especially in this committee, at times say, even
if it is wrong, we need to do something, and that is not the
way you maintain a constitutional republic and you maintain any
freedom if it is not very thoughtful.
Doctor, you were mentioning the wounds, the horrific wounds
you were dealing with, and you mentioned that normally you are
dealing with pencil-hole injuries that are sometimes hard to
find. Well, those pencil-hole injuries are normally made by a
.223 caliber, just barely a hair bigger than a .22. Isn't that
right? You were looking at more like a .308, because it was
more similar to an AK-47 one, correct?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I don't know the types of weapons--
Mr. Gohmert. The nomenclature. Yeah.
Dr. Rios-Tovar.--to be honest.
Mr. Gohmert. My understanding is basically a manufactured
AK-47 that is much, much bigger than the AR-15, which is a .223
round, just barely bigger than a .22, whereas the AK, the
nomenclature in the Army they taught us 7.62, but basically
like a .308, and those can do devastating damage. My
understanding is that somebody privately made that and sold
that.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Apart from shotgun wounds, which are also
devastating because of the large impact, I haven't seen
anything like this in my history as a trauma surgeon, and since
then as well.
Mr. Gohmert. I appreciate the help that you provided.
Ms. Swearer, you talked about the use of guns between
500,000 to 2 million times a year. Is that correct?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gohmert. It is rather amazing that that many times
people would need to use guns to defend themselves, rather
shocking. I certainly appreciate your comments about your mom.
It is easier to fire one of those. I have to disagree with you
when you say it has the maximum stopping power. After Vietnam,
we were taught that, in the Army, that we went to the M-16--now
the M-4, same nomenclature, same .223-size round--that it was
faster and might be more likely to wound, but it doesn't have
the stopping power of a .308.
Ms. Swearer. To be clear, Congressman, I would not disagree
with you. My intent was to show that it has more stopping power
than a handgun, so she can use it more accurately and more
effectively.
Mr. Gohmert. I would have to disagree with you there. A 9
mm, a .45, a .38, they have a lot more stopping power than an
AR-15 .223 round. Correct?
Ms. Swearer. I would disagree with you, in some cases.
Mr. Gohmert. You don't think a bullet hole from a 9 mm
would do more damage than a .223 round?
Ms. Swearer. I would say I would much rather have a 9 mm
than no firearm, but generally speaking it is a combination of
both stopping power and--
Mr. Gohmert. Don't you acknowledge that your mother was
more comfortable with the .223 because it doesn't have the
kick, it is not as intimidating, you can refire it more easily.
Correct?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, but part of that is also just the
inherent setup of a rifle. It is a more stable.
Mr. Gohmert. We have seen the gun stats go back and forth--
or crime, rather, go back and forth over the years, and it
seems to me that it was related to putting criminals in jail,
being tough on crime, the pendulum swings back. Now it looks
like the pendulum is swinging against the law-abiding citizens
for the first time, and that really is a concern.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from
Georgia.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 20-five years
ago, we passed a law that prevented the manufacturer or sale of
assault weapons for ordinary Americans, and it made a
difference. Mass shooting fatalities dropped 70 percent between
1994 and 2004. Fifteen years later Congress failed the American
people by allowing the assault weapons ban to sunset. That was
in 2004. Since then we have had repeatedly failures. We have
had repeated failures to make even modest reforms to unfettered
gun access in the United States.
Because of our 15 years of inaction, we are now living a
tragedy, a tragedy of repeated horrific events interspersed
with lulls where American ideals of freedom and safety and
justice crumble before our very eyes. For what? Because folks
are afraid of the NRA?
There is a time for moderation, for cautious, restrained
debate, but that ended when Sandy Hook happened, when Parkland,
Pulse nightclub, El Paso, and Dayton happened. Now is the time
for justice to reassert itself as a guiding American principle,
and it is time for Congress to do the right thing.
According to recent polls, 7 out of 10 people are in favor
of a ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons. There
is broad consensus on this issue because it makes sense. We
have done it before and we can do it again, and I look forward
to hearing from our panel of esteemed witnesses on this
important topic.
Now the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was
passed in 2005, the year after Congress allowed the assault
weapons ban to expire. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in
Arms Act prohibits people from filing wrong death lawsuits
against gun manufacturers and gun dealers. When the families of
the Sandy Hook victims took Remington Outdoor Company to court
for mass marketing assault weapons to civilians, specifically
for mass shootings, it took the case five years just to
overcome a challenge under the PLCAA, and that was one of the
success stories. What we don't see are all of the assault
weapons cases that are not brought into civil court because of
PLCAA.
Mr. Chipman, how does the existence of the Protection of
Lawful Commerce in Arms Act prevent victims and their families
from seeking justice?
Mr. Chipman. I block them from holding an industry
accountable before a court of law, like every other business in
America is held accountable.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Civil suits often Act as a
regulator to prevent negligent acts by companies that otherwise
have no regulatory incentive to Act in the best interest of
consumers, and not just negligent acts but intentional acts and
fraudulent acts, to cover it up.
Do you believe that assault weapons companies are taking
steps to avoid negligence when they manufacture these devices
and sell them to civilians?
Mr. Chipman. I think certainly their marketing these days
is suspect. I think that even the markings on AR receivers that
the company that sold in Dayton, that you can get them saying
``Not made in my s-hole country'' are marketing to a certain
type of extreme and violent part of this country. We have
seemed to balance this with cigarettes, allow people to
lawfully smoke but protect our Nation from marketing that would
put people at harm.
So, also, the other thing that has been effective in
keeping data out is just the restrictions placed on me at ATF,
the data that wouldn't hurt my criminal investigations but
might be useful to this panel to decide what crime guns are the
most popular amongst criminal? How do they get in criminals'
hands? You don't have access to that data. It is blocked.
So, I think there is a whole host of things that make it
very difficult to hold this industry accountable, like we hold
accountable other industries.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. If PLCAA were overturned
or rescinded, what difference do you think it could make in how
companies sell and manufacture assault weapons?
Mr. Chipman. We would have to see how things played out in
court, and I have faith in our judicial systems that if victims
had an opportunity to be heard in court, courts would do the
right thing to protect our nation.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. My time has expired, and
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from
Arizona.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Fewer than 1 in 50 of all
prisoners that were incarcerated for a violent crime obtained a
firearm from a local retail source and possessed, carried, or
used it during the offense for which they were imprisoned.
Among the 287,400 prisoners who had possessed a firearm during
their offense, more than half either stole it, found it at the
scene of the crime, obtained it off the street or from the
underground market. That is the reality of where people get
guns who use them to commit crimes.
About 1.3 percent of prisoners obtained a gun from a retail
source--1.3 percent. That is the reality of where people get
guns, regardless of what kind of gun they have.
Studies have indicated very clearly that higher rates of
gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of violent
crime. Switzerland and Israel have much higher gun ownership
rates than the United States but experience far fewer homicides
and have much lower violent crime rates than many European
nations with strict gun control laws. Canada is ranked 12th in
the world for the number of civilian-owned guns per capita and
reports one of the world's lowest homicide rates. Even then,
some provinces have a higher homicide rate than the United
States' states, with less restrictive laws and higher rates of
gun ownership.
The Brady Campaign against Gun Violence ironically makes
clear this point. Gun freedom states that scored poorly, like
New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, and Oregon, have some of the
lowest homicide rates. Conversely, gun control states that
received high scores, like Maryland and Illinois, experienced
some of the nation's highest homicide rates.
Legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much
more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide. In
2013, President Barack Obama ordered the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention to assess existing research on gun
violence, and this is what they found. According to the CDC,
self-defense can be an important crime deterrent. Semi-
automatic rifles such as the AR-15 are commonly used in self-
defense, especially in homes of law-abiding citizens, because
they are easier to control than handguns, more versatile than
handguns, and offer the advantage of up to 30 rounds of
protection.
Here are some examples of when an AR-15 has been used to
save lives. Oswego, Illinois, 2018, a man with an AR-15
intervened to stop a neighbor's knife attack and cited the
larger weapon's intimidation factor as the reason why the
attacker dropped the knife and ended the attack, saving the
purported victim.
Catawba County, North Carolina, 2018, a 17-year-old
successfully fought off three armed attackers with his AR-15,
saving his own life.
Houston, Texas, 2017, a homeowner survived a drive-by
shooting by defending himself with his AR-15.
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, 2017, a homeowner's son killed
three would-be burglars with an AR-15, in what was found to be
justifiable self-defense.
Texas, 2013, a 15-year-old boy used an AR-15 during a home
invasion to save both his life and that of his 12-year-old
sister from a violent armed intruder.
Rochester, New York, home intruders fled after facing an
AR-15.
Ms. Muller, you served as a law enforcement officer during
the time that the previous assault weapon ban was in place,
from 1994 to 2004. Did you see any impact, anecdotally, on your
safety as a law enforcement officer or on those you were sworn
to protect and serve?
Ms. Muller. I have previously testified that I did not see
any before, during, or after, and I am listening to these
numbers and I would like to follow up on the 70 percent less
likely to occurring an assault weapon's ban. I don't understand
that, and I don't understand why we would have allowed it to
sunset if it were an effective policy.
Mr. Biggs. Yeah, well, it was contested, and as I reported,
the CDC did its own study and didn't come up with the same
conclusions.
So, is there anything else that you hear today you would
like to respond to?
Ms. Muller. There is a lot.
Mr. Biggs. Well, press on, then.
Ms. Muller. Do I have 26 seconds?
Mr. Biggs. Yep.
Ms. Muller. Okay. I would like to--Congressman Richmond has
already gone, but the FN Five-Seven, a little bit of education
there. It shoots flatter. As a woman, it's less recoil. I love
this little gun. It is not a fifty-seven. It is a Five-Seven,
and it shoots flatter so I can be more accurate at longer
distances. With the minimal recoil and it holds 30 rounds, for
a pistol that is good. It has got kind of a weird grip but that
allows me to protect myself better. This probably--and it does
have knockdown power, yes.
My goal here is to educate people. We are law-abiding,
responsible gun owners, and please don't legislate the 150
million people just like me into being criminals, because it
has happened. You have already done it. The legislation on bump
stocks, I was a bump stock owner, and I had to make a
decision--do I become a felon, or do I comply?
Like that gentleman that just got escorted out, I will not
comply with the assault weapons ban.
Mr. Biggs. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentleman from Florida.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Chair Nadler, for calling this
important hearing today. Thanks to all the witnesses for your
testimony. Welcome to all the advocates. I would especially
like to welcome my constituents, Fred Guttenberg, father of
Jaime, and Robert Schentrup, brother of Carmen.
I ask unanimous consent to include statements from Jen
Guttenberg and Ryan Deutch into the record.
[The information follows:]
?
MR. DEUTCH FOR THE RECORD
=======================================================================
Orange Ribbons for Jaime
What It Is Like to Lose a Child to Gun Violence
by Jennifer Guttenberg
Co-founder of Orange Ribbons for Jaime
(in honor of my beautiful Jaime Guttenberg)
September 25, 2019
With all of the controversy over gun policies in this
country, I thought this is the perfect time to discuss what it
is like to lose a child to gun violence.
February 14, 2018 seemed like it was going to be an extra
special day. It was Valentine's Day, and after the typical
chaotic morning getting my two teenagers out the door by 7 am
so that they wouldn't be late for school, I was happy we would
celebrate when they arrived back home with cards, candy and
gifts. Unfortunately, that never happened.
My kids were both in their respective classrooms at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL when the fire
alarm went off. It was close to the end of the day, so my son
gathered his belongings and made his way outside, hoping he
would be able to come straight home after the all clear.
Instead, there was chaos. Gun shots were being heard. Kids were
frantic. Chaos erupted. My son was told by an educator to run
away from the school as far as he could. Imagine kids, with no
supervision, climbing and jumping over the school fence and
running down the street as fast as they could, while at the
same time trying to reach their loved ones. He couldn't reach
Jaime.
We got call after call from him, breathlessly panicked that
he couldn't find Jaime. She wasn't answering her phone. Nobody
could reach her. She had been shot as she was trying to flee
the hallway into the stairwell, but she couldn't get out in
time. We couldn't get anywhere close to the school. We
frantically called her friends to see if they had seen her, we
raced to the trauma center at the hospital on the other side of
town where the injured were being sent and we drove in circles
trying to get around traffic to get to her. She never arrived
at the meeting place where kids were reunited with their
parents. We didn't learn of her fate for many hours. Then we
couldn't see her for several days. We weren't allowed to
identify her, touch her or hold her. We didn't know where she
was shot or how many times. We didn't know if she suffered. We
knew nothing. It was torture.
Now she is spoken of in the past tense. My daughter WAS
fourteen. She WAS a great student. She WAS a great friend. She
WAS an amazing sister. And she WAS the best daughter that
anyone could've asked for. Why? Because she was in the wrong
place at the wrong time . . . and that ``wrong'' place was
school for goodness sake! In the past this would have been
known as the right place for a girl of her age to be. This is
UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!
I can't say the shock ever wears off, but rather reality
simultaneously sets in. I no longer have my daughter here with
me. I will never have my daughter here with me again.
Life has changed dramatically. Within an instant, I lost my
best friend. I no longer get to shuffle her around to school
activities, dance, and her friends' houses. I no longer have a
partner to shop with or to get pedicures together with for
special occasions. I don't even want to attend any special
occasions. I have nobody to watch dance shows with and nobody
to do makeup on for dance competitions. don't ever want to go
to a dance competition again. I have no one to obsess about our
dogs with and no one to go out for a girl's lunch with me.
I lost her because the wrong person was able to buy a
weapon of mass destruction!
There are some amazing people fighting daily, including my
husband, to fix the loopholes in the gun laws. But for Jaime
and the 16 others who were killed that day it's too late. I am
disgusted by our government and the fact that many of them
fight to remain beholden to the NRA. The gun lobby has no
business being in our government. They never ran for office.
They weren't chosen by the American people. I am sick and tired
of our congressmen/women not standing up for what is right, for
what the majority of people that elected them want, and for the
safety of the citizens of the United States of America.
My life is forever changed. My husband's life is forever
changed. My son's life is forever changed. It's been nineteen
months since Jaime's life was taken away, and it feels like an
eternity. We get to watch her friends attend homecoming,
football games, dance competitions, and sweet sixteen. We get
to see social media posts about them getting their driver's
licenses and their first car. They get to take the SAT and
apply for college. Next we will see them move out and embark on
their journey of independence, start working in the career of
their choice, get married to the loves of their lives, and have
babies who become beloved grandchildren. We don't get to see
Jaime do any of these things. She was robbed of her life and
her future. We were robbed of our life with our precious
daughter.
I've written several op-eds with the hopes that perhaps it
will open other people's eyes and make them understand. Nobody
will really know what it feels like to live with the image of
your child running down the hallway for that very last time
with an AR-15 pointed at her back. She was one of the unlucky
ones. There are far too many unlucky ones. When it is YOUR
family member that is the unlucky one, it is easy to
understand.Now, it is important for EVERYONE to understand.
For now, those of us and the communities that surround us
who understand will fight for change. In addition, and most
importantly, we will vote those out who care more about the
money in their pockets than those who have suffered and the
many more who will suffer in the future due to their lack of
action This pain is unbearable. It doesn't get better. It gets
more difficult with each missed a mile stone. In my family,
three kisses means ``I love you.'' Jaime always wanted ten. We
gave each other ten kisses every night. In the time that has
passed without her thus far, I have missed close to 6,000
kisses from my baby girl. That's just not fair . . . .
Mr. Deutch. Seeing no objection, I will move on. Jen is the
mother of Jaime Guttenberg. Jaime was a vibrant, beautiful, 14-
year-old freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas when she was
killed by an assault rifle in her school on February 14, 2018.
Jen said that on that day she lost her best friend and now must
live with the image of her child running down the hallway,
running away from an AR-15.
Ryan was a freshman and survivor of the MSD shooting. He
and others went on to find the March For Our Lives movement.
Some of those students are here today and I want to welcome and
recognize them.
In his testimony, Ryan said, ``I am not just asking for
change. I am begging for it, because I don't want to live in a
country where every other day, I read about another community
destroyed, another group of innocent lives ripped away from us.
As Americans, we owe it to ourselves to do better, and we
can.''
I have all kinds of things, questions that I wanted to ask,
but here is my response to what I have heard today. We have
heard over and over about the people who need to have these
guns, because they are easy to hunt critters, because they
could be used for self-defense. These guns can also be used to
hunt people. I have been carrying around this piece of paper
since February 15th, 2018. I am going to read what is on it:
Alyssa Alhadeff, 14. Scott Beigel, 35; Martin Duque, Mr.
Williams. Nicholas Dworet, 17. Aaron Feis, 37. Jaime
Guttenberg, 14. Chris Hixon, 49. Luke Hoyer, 15. Gina Montalto,
Mr. Williams. Cara Loughran, 14. Joaquin Oliver, 17. Alaina
Petty, 14. Meadow Pollack, 18. Helena Ramsay, 17. Alex
Schachter, 14. Carmen Schentrup, 16. Peter Wang, 15.
Every one of those 17 who were killed at Stoneman Douglas
will never be older than that age, on the day they were killed.
I understand the importance of the Second Amendment, but
how it is that we can have a hearing where one of the witnesses
compares these weapons to shoes is just beyond me.
We are going to give a list--I have got another list. How
about this list: Dayton, 9 killed, 17 injured. Las Vegas, 58
killed, 422 injured. Orlando, 49 killed, 53 injured. Sandy
Hook, 27 killed, including 20 6- and 7-year-old babies, and 2
injured. Sutherland Springs, 26 killed, 20 injured. El Paso, 22
killed, 24 injured. Pittsburgh Tree of Life, 11 killed, 6
injured. At Stoneman Douglas there were also 17 who were
injured.
I understand that this is not easy for everyone, but I want
to everyone to understand how, for the lives who have been
ripped from the face of this earth, for their families it will
never be the same. What we are trying to do here, the reason
this hearing is so important, is because we know that there are
things that we can do to keep us safe. We heard some of them,
even apart from an assault weapons ban. We heard some of them
today.
Ms. Swearer, you talked about how we can identify people
who pose a threat. You are right. We can. That is why we need
to pass a Red Flags law so that we can keep dangerous guns out
of their hands. You are right about that.
The Universal Background Checks bill that is sitting in the
Senate, near universal approval. Let's pass it in the Senate.
But what we are here today to talk about is something that
can prevent these kinds of attacks. Mr. Chipman, you talked
about the National Firearms Act regulations to get assault
weapons out of dangerous hands. You walked us through the
process that it takes for someone to buy a weapon regulated
under that system--registration with ATF, background checks,
photos, fingerprints, and a transfer tax. You told us that it
was passed after--the National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed
after a Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929. We had a Valentine's
Day Massacre in 2018, in my community.
Have there been efforts--are there people clamoring for us
to repeal the National Firearms Act, Mr. Chipman?
Mr. Chipman. No. In fact, the industry is working very hard
to work around it.
Mr. Deutch. It is a law that has been in effect. Have we
seen machine guns and sawed-off shotguns used repeatedly the
way we have seen assault weapons used in these mass shootings?
Mr. Chipman. No. It is a law that works.
Mr. Deutch. It is a law that we should amend to treat
assault weapons the same way we treat machine guns and sawed-
off shotguns. That will help keep our communities safe.
Mr. Chair, I am immensely grateful that you are holding
this hearing today. I yield back the balance of my time.
[Applause.]
Chair Nadler. Rules of the House provide there should be no
demonstrations of approval or disapproval from the audience.
Without objection, the documents referenced by the
gentleman from Florida will be entered into the record.
Chair Nadler. I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Swearer, did I pronounce that right?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Jordan. All right. Ms. Swearer, define the type of guns
the Democrats want to ban.
Ms. Swearer. It appears to me common semi-automatic
firearms that just happen to have certain features like pistol
grips and barrel shrouds, even though they are functionally the
equivalent of other commonly owned semi-automatic firearms.
Mr. Jordan. Semi-automatic weapons with a magazine capacity
of 10 rounds or more with scary features. Is that right?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir. That is my understanding.
Mr. Jordan. How many types of guns does that entail? Is
that a lot?
Ms. Swearer. A lot. Yes, sir.
Mr. Jordan. All kinds of them?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Jordan. I think in your opening remarks you talked
about the scary features. They are just features. Other than
the look, they don't change the impact the weapon may have on a
bad guy trying to do someone harm, right?
Ms. Swearer. No, sir. They don't change the function. In
fact, some of them, like barrel shrouds, actually protect
lawful users from things like serious burns.
Mr. Jordan. And as I read the Second Amendment, it doesn't
say the right to bear arms shall not be infringed unless the
gun has scary features. It doesn't say that, does it?
Ms. Swearer. No, sir. It does not.
Mr. Jordan. Do you think bad guys are going to follow this
law?
Ms. Swearer. Sir, they already fail to follow many of our
laws.
Mr. Jordan. Yeah. Only good guys. Only law-abiding people
like yourself, others, are going to follow this law, right?
Ms. Swearer. Yes.
Mr. Jordan. Do think law abiding people will be less safe
to protect themselves, their family, their property, if this
law that the Democrats are proposing actually happens? Or this
bill that the Democrats are proposing actually becomes law?
Ms. Swearer. I think worse than that, sir, you will see
millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens become felons
overnight for nothing more than having scary looking features
on firearms.
Mr. Jordan. Yeah. Do you think if a criminal suspects that
a person they are thinking about targeting for a crime--if they
suspect that individual may have a firearm do you think there
is less chance they target them for a crime?
Ms. Swearer. We actually know this to be the case. So, when
you look at studies that have come out of the '90s between what
are considered hot burglary rates, so burglary rates where
individuals are home during the home invasion, that they are
actually lower in the United States than in the United Kingdom.
When they follow up with those criminals, part of the
reason for that is that in the United States there is a fear
amongst people who would commit burglaries and home invasions--
Mr. Jordan. Yeah.
Ms. Swearer. --that there might be someone home who would
do something.
Mr. Jordan. It is common sense. Bad guy is walking down the
street. He is trying to figure out which home he is going to
rob.
In one driveway there is a pickup truck with a gun rack
that says, ``Make America Great Again'' on the bumper sticker,
right, and in the next driveway there is a Volkswagen with a
bumper sticker that says ``O'Rourke for President.'' Who do you
think they are going to rob?
Ms. Swearer. Sir, I will refrain from making assumptions
about who gun owners are. Generally speaking, criminals do tend
to take the path of least resistance.
Mr. Jordan. Of course. I always say this. Bad guys aren't
stupid. They are just bad. They are just evil. They are not
going to follow the law, and what this legislation will do is
make it more difficult for law-abiding people like you, like
all kinds of folks, to protect themselves when some bad guy is
bent on doing something wrong.
Ms. Swearer. Generally speaking, yes, and that is something
we know happens right now between 500,000 and 2 million times a
year is law-abiding Americans defending themselves with
firearms.
Mr. Jordan. Yeah.
Ms. Muller, do you want to add anything? I got a minute 30.
Ms. Muller. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
First, anybody in here who has endured any kind of
unspeakable violence or lost loved ones, I want to say thank
you or I am sorry because I want somebody there immediately.
I want you to be your own first responder and I will be
glad to talk to you about how to keep your family safe. I am
sorry that this has happened to you and my community is the
first one that wants to make sure everybody is safe with a
firearm.
These gun-free zones, 90 percent--over 90 percent--what we
are talking about, these mass murders, are happening in gun-
free zones.
Every time you guys legislate against the gun owner; you
are counterproductive. It breaks my heart to hear these stories
of these kids and their ages, and you have to put people back
together in the hospital. It is--
Mr. Jordan. Ms. Muller, sorry to interrupt here. Let me ask
you one question. This is a ban on sale of this type of weapon
as defined under the Democrats' legislation, as we move
forward.
But do you think this is just a first step? Do you take
former Congressman O'Rourke at his word when he says, we are
going to take these type of weapons--we are going to get these
weapons? Do you think this is just step one that they are
proposing?
Ms. Muller. Yes. That is what I think the millions of gun
owners are fearful in allowing this death by a thousand cuts.
We have already had panelists here that say that every
firearm is capable, lethal, and if it can hunt a human then it
shouldn't be in our hands.
So, and Mr. O'Rourke did probably expose a plan that that
they have been denying for so long. We feel it. We know it. You
can say it and call it whatever you want. But we know it is a
slippery slope.
Mr. Jordan. I think the--
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from California?
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Chair, and I want to thank the
gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Cicilline, for bringing this
legislation forward.
Dr. Rios-Tovar, thank you for your work in the community,
and it was hard to hear the story of the first patient that
came to you that day. Was it a scary-looking feature that
caused the death of that patient?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I don't know what that gun looked like. I
just know what the bullet wounds look like and I know that when
you have a high-capacity magazine, whether it is a semi-
automatic rifle that you are reloading multiple times, you have
the capability to have devastating injuries to multiple
casualties.
Mr. Swalwell. Would you agree when you put a pistol grip on
a long rifle where the round already has high velocity, high
energy, you can take the least skilled shooter and they can
indiscriminately spray a crowd and a would like the one that
you had to attend to can occur?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I could assume so.
Mr. Swalwell. It reminds me of a gunshot victim whose case
I prosecuted in Oakland where the victim was shot in the back
of the thigh and he succumbed the wounds. His mom she said, ``I
don't get it.''
You would think if you are shot in the leg or the arm that
you would survive. That is where you would want to be hit.
The ballistics expert in the autopsy, doctors said,
actually no, because it was a long rifle round and 40 rounds
were fired at him and he was hit just once. Just like the
victim you attended to it leaves very little chance of
survival.
Mr. Chipman, also thank you for your service to our
country, and I read your testimony and it seems to me that you
support a ban on the future sales and manufacturing of assault
weapons. Is that right?
Mr. Chipman. Yeah, similar to what we did in 1986 with
machine guns.
Mr. Swalwell. I hear you and I agree with you as far as the
National Firearms Act and making sure that they are registered.
Would you agree that we want to ban future sales and
manufacturing because it is a dangerous weapon different than a
long rifle used for hunting or a pistol used to shoot for sport
or a shotgun used to protect someone in their house? That this
is just a different weapon?
Mr. Chipman. Yes. They are particularly lethal.
Mr. Swalwell. So, I guess my concern is, because I want
this bill to pass--I will vote for it to pass. As you described
earlier, if this passes, just like the 1994 law, we will still
leave millions--the NRA estimates 15 million assault rifles in
our communities.
So, if these weapons are dangerous in the future, wouldn't
you agree that they are dangerous now and that there has to be
some way to protect people now from ever having their kids shot
in the school, their parent shot in a church, their sister shot
at a concert, from one of these weapons?
Mr. Chipman. We absolutely have to address the most lethal
weapons that are already in civilians' hands and I believe the
National Firearms Act is the best way to approach that.
Mr. Swalwell. I appreciate what the Giffords Group is
doing--but my proposal is this, that if it is dangerous in the
future it is dangerous now and that it would be very hard for
us to pass this legislation and then, God forbid, there would
be a mass shooting, and after there was a celebration on the
House steps that a weapon that was grandfathered in was killed
to take dozens of lives and we would have to explain to victims
that we allowed those weapons to stay in use.
I also think it would create confusion among the public. If
there is a ban on assault weapons why was this weapon used and
knowing the NRA and their misinformation operations that they
would say, look they had the bad--it didn't work.
My proposal would be to do what Australia did, which would
be to have a buyback period to allow people like Ms. Muller and
others to use their weapons at a shooting range or a hunting
club, to allow them to be possessed there but nowhere else in
our community and that we would pay at market rate, as they did
in Australia, for these weapons.
Now, Australia did this and they were able to get off the
streets 700,000. We won't get off as cheaply, but it is not as
if this is something that never happened. So, I hope we can
aspire to do that.
This is the first important step and I thank all of the
witnesses for participating and I thank all of the families for
being here. Because the families have picked themselves up from
unimaginable grief, there are 18 fewer NRA Members of Congress
today endorsed by the NRA than there were a year ago. So, keep
marching, keep caring, and we will see action and we will all
be safer.
I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from California?
Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Swearer, the arguments around these bills seem to have
an inordinate faith that somehow, they are going to keep these
weapons out of the hands of criminals and mad men and
terrorists.
I don't share that faith. I look at how effective our drug
laws have been at keeping drugs out of the hands of addicts and
wonder if that faith isn't misplaced.
As Mr. Biggs pointed out, aren't a majority of the firearms
already used in crimes, already being obtained illegally?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, that is my understanding that, largely
speaking, a high percentage of guns that are used in criminal
activity are coming from people who obtain them illegally and
had criminal records themselves.
Mr. McClintock. So, they have already been very ineffective
at disarming criminals and mad men and terrorists.
The other argument we hear is, well, nobody has a
legitimate use for an AR-15, and I think you made a very good
point that these aren't military weapons.
They are designed to look like them, but the actual firing
mechanism is the same as those that are used in a wide variety
of legitimate hunting and target rifles and pistols.
That said, I am a gun owner but I don't own an AR-15
because I don't feel I need one. I might have a different
opinion if I was in the third day in a hurricane disaster zone
without power or law enforcement or if I was a late night clerk
in a gang area or a theater owner who wanted to be able to
protect my customers in a crisis or if I was a border rancher
where cartels are operating.
Don't I have a right to make that decision for myself under
the Second amendment rather than have one of my friends on the
left make it for me?
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir, especially with regard to commonly
owned semi-automatic firearms that have long been commonly
owned by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.
Mr. McClintock. The one area where I do agree is, we ought
to be absolutely outraged by these growing incidents of mass
shootings. We didn't have problems like this, certainly not at
this magnitude or frequency 50 years ago.
So, I think it is important to ask what policies have
changed in those 50 years that would explain this and it seems
to me there are three.
50 years ago, we used to execute murderers. We have,
largely, stopped doing that now. Could that have something to
do with it?
Ms. Swearer. I am not familiar with whatever studies you
may be referring to with regard to capital punishment and mass
shootings. But, I do know that there are bigger factors
underlying mass shootings.
Mr. McClintock. We used to put violent criminals in prison
until they were old and feeble. Now we have early release
programs, sanctuary laws that are releasing dangerous criminals
back into our communities. Could that have something to do with
it?
Ms. Swearer. With regard to mass public shootings, that is
unclear. But with regard to gun crime in particular, it is the
case that a lot of gun crime is perpetrated by people with long
histories of previously violent behavior.
Mr. McClintock. Most importantly, we used to confine the
dangerously mentally ill when we identified them in mental
hospitals where we could treat them and prevent them from
harming others.
In fact, in 1958, my State of California there were 37,000
mentally ill contained in our mental hospitals. Many were
dangers to themselves or to others. Proportionately, that would
be over 100,000 today.
Today, we only confine 7,000. The rest of them are on the
streets. Could that have something to do with it?
Ms. Swearer. Well, without meaning to come across as
demonizing all mentally ill people as dangerous--
Mr. McClintock. Oh, no, and I don't mean to stress that all
mentally ill people are dangerous.
Ms. Swearer. There is--of course.
Mr. McClintock. Some mentally ill people are dangerous.
Those are the ones that we confined.
Ms. Swearer. Yes, sir. So, we have written on this
specifically at the Heritage Foundation and there is a
relationship between sort of rates of violence and what we have
seen in the mass deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill.
Mr. McClintock. 50 years ago, we had very few gun control
laws. Today, we have a great many. If these laws were actually
the answer to these--to these massacres, shouldn't the problem
be getting better and not worse by now?
Ms. Swearer. With regard to mass public shootings, yes,
arguably. Though I would also say gun violence in general is
more complex.
Mr. McClintock. I think that should be self-evident.
Now, when you go to a bank you see an armed guard and that
guard is there to protect our money. Why would anyone object to
an armed guard in a school who is there to protect our
children?
Ms. Swearer. I am not sure why anyone would object to
protecting our nation's children in the same way that we
protect other important places.
Though, arguably, I mean, we do not want to turn schools
into some sort of prison function where people feel that they
are behind bars or something like that.
Mr. McClintock. But whenever anybody suggests that maybe we
ought to have lethal force to protect our children, people go
crazy over that. They don't give a second thought to an armed
guard in the bank to protect our money.
Ms. Swearer. So, we know that especially with regard to
mass public shootings, one of the biggest factors is actually
the quickness of the armed response to that shooting, and so
that is one of the possible solutions. Yes.
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentlelady from Washington?
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all so
much for being here. Your testimony was very powerful.
I am perplexed by this argument from the other side that--
if I heard it right that criminals do not follow laws and,
therefore, we shouldn't have laws?
I mean, that statement has no relevance to the existing
debate around gun reform because fundamentally it is completely
irrelevant because it is just as meaningless as saying the sky
is blue, my microphone is black, or the grass is green.
Definitionally, criminals don't follow laws. That is what
criminals are. So here is the paradox that the other side is
putting forward, and I just want to go through it because I
think it is important to dismiss this argument for what it is,
which is bogus, in my opinion.
The paradox is this. Law-abiding citizens obey the law,
number one. Number two, criminals are lawbreakers; therefore,
they don't obey the law. Brilliant.
Number three, laws impose restrictions on the behavior of
only those that follow them and, therefore, number four, laws,
therefore, only hurt law-abiding citizens.
Well, that would mean that we shouldn't have any laws at
all because definitionally we are making laws based on the kind
of society that we imagine and then we expect that the vast
majority of people are going to follow those laws and the
people that don't will then have accountability.
So, I just think it is a ridiculous argument. I don't
understand why the other side keeps putting it forward.
The data shows that mass shootings are becoming far more
frequent, and they are getting deadlier. My colleague, Mr.
Deutch, gave a powerful statement, talked about all the
shootings.
I wanted to pull out that 16 of the 20 most deadly mass
shootings in modern history occurred in the last 20 years and
eight of them in the last five years. But look at the amount of
time in each of these shootings.
So, in 2017, the Las Vegas shooting claimed and
unprecedented 58 lives and 850 injuries in just 10 minutes. El
Paso shooting claimed 22 lives and 24 were injured in less than
six minutes.
Thank you, Mayor, for being here. The Dayton shooting
claimed nine lives and dozens of injuries in just 30 seconds.
All of these by a single shooter who legally purchased semi-
automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines.
So, let me ask you, Mr. Chipman, the Giffords Law Center
finds that a person with an assault weapon can hurt and kill
twice the number of people compared to a shooter with a non-
assault rifle or handgun.
Why is that? Think about just average people who are out
there who are trying to understand this issue. What are the
specific features of an assault weapon that are most dangerous?
Mr. Chipman. Well, let me talk about rifles specifically.
When you are firing a round at over 3,000 feet per second as
compared to a handgun, which is usually under a thousand feet
per second, when it hits, it just destroys the body.
For instance, I worked for Gabby Giffords. She would not
have survived had she been shot with a rifle. It is just an
entirely different category.
So, if you mix the speed of the round, and then the ability
to easily carry a hundred rounds in a magazine or 50 and you
can fire as quick as the finger can pull, you do battle-like
wounds.
In Las Vegas, the thought 20 years ago that I could have
even imagined a shooting where a single gunman could have
inflicted 58 deaths and hundreds of people wounded, many of
them off-duty law enforcement officers, it is just hard to
imagine. Has everything to do with the capabilities of the
weapon.
Ms. Jayapal. Just a quick clarifying question. When you
said a rifle round, just for people who don't know what that
is, explain what happens when the rifle found actually strikes.
Mr. Chipman. Well, then I would need the help of my dad,
the mathematician, and do physics.
Ms. Jayapal. Just quickly--
Mr. Chipman. Just let me say that when a piece of lead is
flying at 3,000 feet per second and it hits you, it is a lot
different than if it is going at 800 feet per second.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you.
Mr. Chipman. So, it is just math and the results are what
our surgeon said as just catastrophic.
Ms. Jayapal. Let me turn to the surgeon. Dr. Heather Sher,
who treated victims from the Parkland shooting, wrote that the
CT scan of one of the victims of an AR-15 showed an organ that
looked like an overripe melon smashed by a sledgehammer.
We have very little time, but can you tell us, from your
perspective as a doctor what do you see and what do you
experience as you are treating individuals who have had these
kinds of wounds?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Like I said, that is accurate from what I
have seen in my particular patients. The entire pelvis on the
left side had a hole the size of a grapefruit that I had no
idea how to repair.
I am not an orthopedic surgeon. I had intestine coming out
of bones. I had never seen that before and I will never see
that again.
Ms. Jayapal. Dr. Tovar, I thank you so much for everything
that you did and thank you for your service to all of you.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from Virginia?
Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank our
witnesses for being here today.
The horrifying acts of mass violence that our country has
witnessed in recent years are totally unacceptable and as
defenders of the Constitution we cannot tolerate the spread of
violence and hatred in our nation.
Unfortunately, today's hearing seeks to villainize one of
America's most popular firearms instead of looking at real
solutions to prevent acts of violence from occurring in our
communities.
From 1991, when violent crime was a record high, until
2017, the nation's total violent crime rate decreased 48
percent. Meanwhile, Americans bought more than 11 million AR-
15s during that period.
It is clear that the majority's underlying objective in
holding this hearing is to rationalize why the Federal
Government should keep guns out of the hands of law-abiding
citizens.
Democrats want to paint the AR-15 as a weapon solely used
for war, when in reality millions of men and women own these
firearms and use them lawfully every day.
Americans have chosen this modern sporting rifle as their
firearm platform of choice--recreational shooting, self-
defense, hunting, and educating the next generation about
firearms and safety.
Our families, our neighbors, and our communities will not
become safer as we confiscate firearms from innocent law-
abiding people.
In fact, by restricting the fundamental freedom that allows
people to defend themselves, Democrats will endanger the lives
of millions who will no longer be able to adequately protect
their families.
As Members of Congress, it is our duty to ensure that we
are protecting the American people by defending this document,
the Constitution, and the freedoms that are enumerated in it.
Our republic was founded on the principle that government
will not impede on these rights and we must uphold that here in
this committee.
So, I will ask Ms. Swearer if there is anything that was
said today that you would like to respond to at this point.
Ms. Swearer. Thank you, Congressman.
There has been a lot that I wish we had the time to respond
to. I will take just a couple of these in order.
I think there is this sort of misunderstanding that if we
can just get rid of AR-15s that somehow this is going to result
in this massive reduction in gun violence.
That, and again, it dramatically misunderstands the
underlying factors of gun violence in this country. Two-thirds
of gun deaths are suicides.
That doesn't matter, frankly, whether you have an AR-15,
which is rarely used in suicide, handgun, or shotgun. It is
essentially irrelevant if you just replace the firearm.
When we are talking about mass public shootings, we are
talking about something that I think we all agree is
devastating to communities.
It is a fraction of a percent of gun deaths every year and
we are talking about switching out the same caliber rifle for
something that is the same caliber in a different rifle, but
now just doesn't have a barrel shroud or a pistol grip, and
saying that this somehow is going to save this large number of
lives every year.
We are looking at the wrong problems and so we are coming
up with the wrong solutions. I mean, these are things that even
if fully effective and not substituted with other types of
firearms we are talking about a bare minimum of actually
impacting rates of gun violence.
We have to be looking at more meaningful factors than
things like pistol grips, and that is something we can work on
together if we would stop looking at scary features.
Mr. Cline. Ms. Muller, would you like to respond to
anything that was said?
Ms. Muller. Yeah. Thank you.
I understand everybody in this room wants to make a
difference and that we want to be safe. We want to be safe.
Firearms owners want to be safe, and I hope you heard in my
oral and my written testimony that we, the firearms industry,
is driving solutions.
If you are really interested in having that conversation
that is why I formed the D.C. Project is to come and make
relationships and help you be a resource to let us go to the
range and let us really understand what those firearms are and
who that community is and how they use them. Those are your
constituents as well.
I will say them again. Eddie Eagle, Project ChildSafe, and
Kid Safe Foundation--those are teaching your kids how to
responsibly look at firearms.
It doesn't mean they have to shoot them, but they need to--
it is just like a swimming pool. You teach your kids how to
swim. You don't want them to go across a body of water at some
point in their life and not know how to live. We are with you.
We want you to be with us.
Mr. Cline. Thank you.
Chief Brackney, you said something earlier that gave me
pause. I am going to give you the chance to amend your
statement.
When you said any weapon that can be used, misused, to hunt
a person should be banned. That applies to all weapons. Is it
your contention that all weapons should be banned and that
you--
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired. The
witness may answer the question.
Chief Brackney. Thank you. I think there is opportunities
for quite a few of us to amend our statements, Senator. Yes,
weapons that are misused should be considered and we are
looking at percentages of individuals that are injured based on
weapons.
The fact that we are willing to boil it down to simple
numbers when it is actual lives and to say that it is a
percentage of or a consideration of a percentage of, we
actually should be ashamed that we are willing to sacrifice the
lives of individuals for data points.
I think we should all be able to come to Charlottesville--
Mr. Cline. You don't want anyone in Charlottesville to have
a weapon?
Chief Brackney. Actually, had we banned or been able to ban
some of the assault weapons coming into Charlottesville, I
think we could have had a very better response from law
enforcement, or even Virginia Beach.
Mr. Cline. All weapons?
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentlelady from Florida?
Mrs. Demings. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you
to all our witnesses for being here today.
I am going to try to get my thoughts together because I
have been pretty amazed at some of the things that I have
heard, particularly from the other side of the aisle.
Mayor Whaley, thank you for being here on behalf of the
people that you represent. You are doing exactly what we would
expect you to do as a mayor.
I know your chief is here as well. Thank you, Chief, for
what you and the men and women that you represent do as well.
I was a law enforcement officer. I spent 27 years. A gun
owner. My father was a hunter. I am from Orlando, where 49
people--we have heard a lot about law-abiding citizens. Those
49 people who were in a nightclub that night were law-abiding
citizens, and they were not protected.
Forty-nine of them lost their lives. 50-three others were
injured and will never be the same, and that does not include
those with invisible wounds.
One of my biggest fears as a police chief was worrying
about the men and women who do the job going home at the end of
the night because if we can't protect them, if they are at
risk, then we know the average citizen is at risk.
I always knew they were going to be outmanned because law
enforcement always is. I certainly worried about them being
outgunned. I have gone to more than my share of law enforcement
officers' funerals.
We have got to do something about the number of mass
shooters that has occurred in a country that we say is the
greatest country in the world--a country where we say life
first, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have offered
nothing as a solution. I am interested in hearing more, Ms.
Muller, about your program. I wasn't familiar with that.
Chief Brackney and Ms. Rand, you said that assault weapons
account for one in four or one in five officers killed in the
line of duty.
It appears that we love our law enforcement officers until
it comes to banning weapons that can blow a hole in them the
size of a grapefruit or rounds that can penetrate their
ballistic vests.
Chief Brackney, I would just like for you to talk a little
bit about the men and women that you command, the burden of
keeping them safe and, really, why are you here today?
Chief Brackney. Thank you, and I appreciate your service as
well.
For me, personally, having experienced three officers die
in Pittsburgh by an assault weapon, knowing there was nothing
we could do to protect them, knowing that one of our officers
was lying there at that point in time saying over the air that
he loved his wife--to let her know that was his only love--he
loved his children, knowing he was going to die, and we could
not get to him for hours as he lay there dying and bleeding out
as a result of that tragedy.
I am here because, as we know, Charlottesville experienced
tragedy at the hands of hate, and when you have the type of
weapons that can be brought into a community that can devastate
an entire community, I actually would be ashamed of any former
law enforcement officer who said, I will refuse to comply with
the law that they were uphold or swore to uphold themselves.
I say to you and each and every one of you, if you have to
go home every night thinking about where your team--would the
people who are out there come home alive every day--if you had
that burden to bear and you could see the secondary trauma that
is enforced upon families, not just the initial trauma, as they
look out the doors to see if their parents are coming home,
whatever that person is who is willing to give their life for a
stranger.
We talk about what greater love is that. We don't ever
amend or talk about that we have restricted your First
amendment rights. You can't say anything at any time.
Mrs. Demings. You are saying no right is absolute--
Chief Brackney. That is right. That is right. So, if we are
willing--
Mrs. Demings. --that you can say anything anywhere anytime.
Chief Brackney. That is exactly right. If we are willing to
amend what you can say, why wouldn't we consider what you could
amend that could cause the type of devastation in each and
every one of our communities.
So, I just thank you even just for the opportunity to be
heard today.
Mrs. Demings. Thank you so much, Chief. Thank you to all of
you.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from Florida?
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed. It says arms--plural. Not certain types of arms. It
says arms, and I stand by the Constitution and I stand by the
Second Amendment.
The Second amendment has absolutely nothing to do with
hunting, although there has been a lot of talk today about
hunting and hunting rifles. It has everything to do with your
constitutional right to defend yourself, your family, and
others.
This is step number one, and the Democrats plan to take
away your guns. Step one--ban a certain type of firearm that no
one can properly define today. I have still not heard a proper
definition of what it is that we are talking about banning.
Step number two--now that we have taken your semi-automatic
rifles away, now we will take your semi-automatic handguns
away.
Step number three--now that we have taken all your guns and
the government only has their guns, now we have turned into
Venezuela and Cuba.
There is absolutely no difference in the functionality of
an AR-15 and a semi-automatic handgun. None. Absolutely no
difference.
We heard the ATF individual talk about as fast as you
depress the trigger is as fast as the round comes out. As fast
as you depress the trigger on an AR-15 is as fast as a round
comes out. As fast as you depress a trigger on a semi-automatic
handgun is as fast as a round comes out.
The weapon I was issued when I did serve in armed conflict
was much different than what is available commercially today.
The M-4 that I was issued in the United States Army in
service of Operation Iraqi Freedom had a selector switch on it
for a three-round burst and fully automatic.
That weapon of war, which is the terminology that the Left
likes to use, is not available to the general public. The
general public cannot go and buy the weapon that I was issued
when I served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
And this term ``assault rifle'' is a fiction. It doesn't
exist. AR stands for ArmaLite, which is the company that
actually manufactured the original AR-15.
There is no such thing as an assault rifle. Just like if I
threw my cup at somebody here and it killed them that would be
an assault cup.
If I used my truck to run somebody over, I guess that would
be an assault truck. So, we are using a fiction to demonize a
certain type of weapon.
So Chief Brackney, I have a question. Isn't it true that an
AR-15 discharges a round every time that you depress the
trigger? Is that correct?
Chief Brackney. Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Steube. Is it also correct that every time that you
depress the trigger of your service revolver that a round is
dispersed? Is that correct?
Chief Brackney. Yes. Based on the social contract and the
social compact that I have with society to police society, that
is correct that when I discharge my weapon that does occur.
Mr. Steube. So, it is your testimony here today that the
functionality of an AR-15 and the functionality of a semi-
automatic handgun is identical because the moment you depress
the trigger a round comes out of the weapon? Is that correct?
Chief Brackney. In the purest sense, yes, when you are
pulling that--absolutely in the purest sense. When we are
talking about the targets and the behaviors and the impact of
those, it is very different than the functionality. That is
correct.
Mr. Steube. Well, I am talking about the functionality and
that is what you all are talking about is the functionality of
an AR-15. So that is what we are talking about.
You said that any--I was in here when you said this, and
correct me if I am misstating and we can have the reporter read
back exactly what you said verbatim if you would like--you said
that anything used to hunt people should be banned. Is that
correct?
Chief Brackney. Any weapon that can be used to hunt
individuals should be banned.
Mr. Steube. Okay. So, you then stand for the proposition to
ban any type of firearm because any type of firearm could be
used to misuse and kill people?
Chief Brackney. As I stated before, with law enforcement,
in particular, there is a social contract that we have and--
Mr. Steube. No. I am asking based on your statement you
said that anything used to hunt people should be banned. That
is what you stated.
You just said--so I am clarifying, your statement today is
that all firearms, because they can be used to hunt people,
should be banned. That is your statement before this committee?
Chief Brackney. So that is not my statement, you haven't
clarified my statement, sir. You have just added a statement
for me.
So, again--
Mr. Steube. Why don't you clarify exactly what you said,
and we can take a break and have the clerk read back exactly
what you stated?
Because I wrote down--you said, anything used to hunt
people should be banned. It is my understanding that any
firearm can be used to hunt people.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. Point of order.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman will suspend. The gentlelady
will State a point of order.
Ms. Mucarsel-Powell. I was in a hearing yesterday in the
Judiciary Committee, the Subcommittee for Immigration, where
one of my colleagues from the minority side stated that it is
not right to attack a witness that comes forth in the manner
that Mr. Steube has been incriminating and attacking our law
enforcement officer here. So, if he could just please tone down
his words.
Mr. Steube. Is there a point of order, Mr. Chair?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman controls the time.
Mr. Steube. No, I had 32 seconds when she asked for a point
of order. I would ask for that time to be put back on the--
Chair Nadler. If you want to be so strict, we will get
seven seconds back.
Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
So, you support banning all firearms or anything used to be
able to hunt people. Is that correct?
Chief Brackney. Sir, you are actually conflating two. You
just said support banning firearms or anything that can be used
to hunt people. That was not my statement.
Mr. Steube. What was your statement then?
Chief Brackney. My statement was--and please, I don't have
it as verbatim as possibly that you do--that I do support
weapons that are used to hunt people, that they be banned.
Mr. Steube. So, any type of weapon that can be used to hunt
people should be banned is your statement?
Chair Nadler. Go ahead. Answer the question.
Chief Brackney. Could he repeat that? The gavel was going
off at the exact time.
Chair Nadler. Sorry. Repeat the question, please.
Mr. Steube. Any type of weapon, which is what you just
stated--any type of weapon that can be used to kill people
should be banned.
Chief Brackney. Sir, you are adding the word type. I said
any weapons. That is my answer. So, thank you.
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentlelady from Texas?
Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for having
this very important hearing that many of us have been waiting
for. To all the families and those who are here that have lost
loved ones, thank you for being here.
I know that every time that you have to sit and listen to
this kind of testimony and the back and forth it brings back
too many memories. Please know that we feel your pain and we
are getting ready to do something about it.
I know that earlier one of my colleagues said that the
Democrats, even if it is wrong, we have to do something. I am
here to tell you that what we are doing is right. It is not
only right for us to do it; I think our country demands it.
Everywhere I go this issue comes up, whether it is a town
hall meeting with veterans or a town hall meeting with seniors.
Everybody is concerned about gun violence and not just with
these types of weapons, but any weapon.
I grew up poor on a farm in south Texas. I was taught to
use a rifle and a shotgun at an early age. Both were used for
hunting to put food on the table or were always ready to
protect us and protect our property.
I still, in fact, keep a shotgun at my home. Fortunately, I
have never had to use it. To me, that is what guns are for--for
hunting and protecting our property.
You don't need a weapon that kills nine to 10 people in 30
seconds to go hunting to put food on the table and you don't
need that either to protect your property.
So, assault weapons are, frankly, in my view, just for
killing people. Weapons that are designed to kill as many
effectively and efficiently as possible, frankly, are posing
the greatest threat to us today.
We, in Texas, have suffered from this, as many other states
have, and it is time for all of us to act. I support the bill
that Mr. Cicilline has before us and, frankly, sometimes I
think it needs to be even stronger.
So, Mr. Chipman, I want to start with you. In your written
testimony, you say that one other option might be to have the
registration of all existing assault weapons under the NFA
while banning any of the future manufacturers of these
firearms.
Is that a position from your or the organization, and are
all the other gun violence groups in accordance with this
position?
Mr. Chipman. It is the position of Giffords, based on my 25
years of experience. I don't want to speak for other
organizations about that.
It is based on my experience that a law, the NFA, was meant
to keep the most dangerous weapons out of criminal hands and it
is working. Only three out of every thousand crime guns traced
by ATF is a machine gun.
So, laws work, and so if we want to focus on other types of
weapons I would suggest we have a time-tested law that has been
on our books since the 1930s. Let us take that approach.
Ms. Garcia. What is your position on the buyback programs?
Mr. Chipman. I think that we should be looking to America,
not Australia, for solutions. As I said, the NFA was passed at
a time where we had a similar problem.
Ms. Garcia. Right.
Mr. Chipman. Very lethal weapons. So, I would suggest that
it is a balance that would honor the rights of people who have
these guns to keep them if they were properly regulated and
understood that there are so many of them out there that, like
machine guns it would prevent them from being manufactured and
sold in the future.
I think that strikes a reasonable balance between the
rights of individuals and the rights of all Americans--a human
right not to get shot.
Ms. Garcia. I wanted to put another idea that came, really,
from a senior at a senior town hall meeting that I had in my
district a couple of weeks ago.
Although it was about senior issues--Social Security,
Medicare--she approached me after the meeting with a list and,
frankly, she has about six or seven suggestions. One caught my
eye and I just wanted your reaction to it.
She thinks we should place a chip when you make them. In
other words, at manufacturing, inside those giant guns and she
was referring to the assault weapons. So, they can be tracked
and know where they are, or to maybe stop an incident before it
happens to do something proactively.
Have you all ever looked at an idea like that?
Mr. Chipman. I don't think we have looked at an idea like
that. One of the challenges for law enforcement, though, is
when you recover a firearm in a crime it is very useful to know
who owns it.
So, the ability to trace a gun, the ability to take shell
casings that are often left at a crime scene and be able to tie
those back to a gun and the shooter are very useful.
I think with a chip in all guns, the reality is most guns
are lawfully owned. So that is a lot of data we don't need. I
would be more focused on what can help cops solve gun crime
quickly and immediately.
Ms. Garcia. Thank you for your thoughts, and I yield back,
Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from Maryland?
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, thank you.
I have heard a number of my colleagues today say that they
are strong supporters of the Second Amendment. I think a couple
of the witnesses also articulated the same sentiment.
I want to say I am a strong supporter of the Second
amendment too as properly interpreted by the Supreme Court in
Heller v. District of Columbia, which says that the Second
amendment gives you a right to a handgun for purposes of self-
defense and a rifle for purposes of hunting and recreation.
Nowhere does it give you a right to weapons of war, machine
guns, armored tanks, or anything like that.
Is there anybody on the panel who disagrees with that? Is
there anyone who believes that the Second amendment gives you a
right to own a machine gun?
No. Okay. Is there anyone who thinks it gives you the right
to own an armored tank?
Ms. Muller, please?
Ms. Muller. Yes, sir.
Mr. Raskin. You think it gives you the right to a tank?
Does it give you a right to nuclear weapons?
Ms. Muller. Well, you started out with machine gun, and we
can legally own machine guns if we go through the rich man's
game of the NFA.
Mr. Raskin. So, you are for unrestricted access to machine
guns then?
Ms. Muller. I would look at that, yes. I would look at
taking those off the NFA.
Mr. Raskin. Do you agree with that, Ms. Swearer, or do you
think there is a constitutional right to own a machine gun?
Ms. Swearer. I believe there is a constitutional right to
own what the equivalent of the same sort of functions of a
musket would be.
Just as we have extended the First amendment to include,
you know, technological advancements we include the same sorts
of things with the Second Amendment. So, it would include--I
think the Supreme Court has--
Mr. Raskin. Well, do you think that--
Ms. Swearer. --found that the proper--the proper phrasing
there to say commonly owned for law-abiding purposes. So it is,
essentially, this function of is it useful for law-abiding
purposes and the answer for a lot of these things is yes.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. I just want to be clear. So, both of you
say that people should be allowed to purchase machine guns the
same way they should be allowed to purchase AR-15s, which is
the same way they should be allowed to purchase hand guns?
Ms. Swearer. My distinction with actual fully automatic
weapons might be a bit different, but yes.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. Well, let me go on because I do have
other questions. I appreciate that.
Dr. Tovar, you are from El Paso. Your testimony was
stunning to me. There was something you said that will haunt me
for a long time, and I want you to elaborate it. You were
supposed to be going home that night. You were called back
after the massacre took place to try to save people and, as I
understand, you helped save and your colleagues helped save
more than a dozen people. Is that right?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Yes. It was a large team effort.
Mr. Raskin. But you lost one person who was, I guess, the
first patient that you worked on and you said that you will
always carry the guilt of that with you.
I remembered a passage I once read from Rousseau who said
how often audacity and pride are on the side of the guilty and
how often shame and guilt are on the side of the innocent.
I wonder why you would feel guilty for trying to save
someone's life who was assassinated by an assault weapon that
you had nothing to do with being in the hands of a criminal.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I felt guilty and I still feel that I could
have done more. I wanted to do more. The fact is I had 10
patients there and reports of maybe up to 20, 40 patients.
I had no idea, and I couldn't spend as much time as I
wanted to on that one patient when I knew I had 20 or 30 coming
in.
Mr. Raskin. Are you still practicing now in El Paso?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Yes.
Mr. Raskin. How do you feel about the possibility of
selling people some machine guns or heavier weaponry under
their so-called Second amendment rights?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I would not agree with that. But the Second
amendment stands.
Mr. Raskin. Yeah. It has been misrepresented. It has been
distorted and the National Rifle Association used to be a
moderate mainstream organization that supported gun safety
regulation.
Then it was taken over, hijacked for political purposes and
the idea was to oppose all gun safety regulations to try to
drive a wedge between the rural parts of America and the
metropolitan parts of America, and that has worked like a dream
from an electoral standpoint. Congratulations, you guys.
We have casualties on the streets of America in every city
and town. These are our people. These are American citizens who
are being shot down by these weapons of war, which you think
the Second amendment covers but the Supreme Court doesn't.
Ms. Muller, you said something before about how I think you
had friends in the military who don't prefer the AR-15--tell me
if I got this right--because they want something with greater
stopping power.
Will you explain what that means?
Ms. Muller. Yes, sir. They were saying that it is their job
in war, in combat, to kill people and they were telling me,
relating that it is not an effective round and that--
Mr. Raskin. What does it mean not to have enough--what you
said before was they had preferred a weapon with greater
stopping power.
Ms. Muller. Correct.
Mr. Raskin. I don't know that phrase. Will you explain that
to me?
Chair Nadler. The gentleman's time has expired. The witness
may answer the question.
Ms. Muller. Stopping power is stopping a threat. If this
person needed to be killed that the TG3 was not a good round to
do that.
Mr. Raskin. So, in other words, the weapons that killed in
El Paso or Dayton did not have enough explosive force. Is that
it?
Ms. Muller. Correct.
Mr. Raskin. Okay. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back.
The gentlelady from Georgia?
Mrs. McBath. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank my colleague, Mr. Neguse from
Colorado, for yielding to me for a few moments to go first and
I want to thank all our witnesses that are here today. Most
definitely I want to thank our survivors, their families, and
all the GBP activists that are taking their time to be here to
discuss this important issue.
I first want to underscore that the current prevalence of
assault weapons was the result of not of action but of
inaction. Congress did not end the assault weapons ban by
lifting it but by simply allowing it to expire, and I believe
that inaction has most definitely cost lives.
Tragically, we have seen extremely little action to address
gun violence in the past several decades. I am pleased to be
part of this present moment in which we are finally having
hearings like this to illuminate the multi-faceted problem of
gun violence.
No single measure will end this epidemic. We know that
there are bills that will save lives. The House has already
passed some of those--universal background checks, closing the
Charleston loophole, and we are continuing to explore other
laws, too.
The House has also passed an appropriations package that
funds gun violence prevention research. Time and time again,
Senate inaction is maintaining the status quo. There has been
over 200 days since the House has passed H.R. 8 to require
universal background checks and in that 200 days the Senate has
done nothing.
The House voted to provide a historic $50 billion--excuse
me, $50 million package to fund gun violence research. But a
Senate proposal instead recommends nothing. Americans are
paying for Senate inaction with their lives.
We lose another hundred people to gun violence every single
day. Every day 100 families face a ne and terrible loss, and
inaction is absolutely unacceptable.
I would like to say for anyone on this panel, unless you
have experienced gun violence you have no idea the burden of
loved ones lost and the burden that that has on their families
and their communities.
Dr. Brackney, how did the expiration of the assault weapons
ban affect law enforcement?
Chief Brackney. Thank you.
I am in complete agreement with you--when we are too
cowardly to face issues and instead let them to expire like we
would milk in our refrigerator versus taking some sort of
action.
As we know, in any other field--think about the medical
field. There are often incremental steps that we take in order
to create medications to address cancer.
We don't say until we have the cure, we do nothing, and we
are doing something very similar when it comes to law
enforcement.
The attacks on law enforcement, the ambushes on law
enforcement, have increased. People have been emboldened by the
fact that not only do they have the weapon and the capacity to
do that, but there is the prevalence of which they can get
these weapons.
There are now, also, the ghost weapons in which you buy
pieces and parts of it so that you can get around, again,
legislation when it comes to what you must be required to do to
obtain a weapon legally.
This is an absolute atrocity, and I have attended those
funerals of officers over the 35 years that I have been in law
enforcement, the more than three decades plus that I have been
in law enforcement.
It continues to hold a pit in your stomach for every person
that you see that has lost a life. Also, it moves
concentrically outward. It affects an entire nation.
The last shootings that we can remember in Dayton, it
stopped the country, and we held our breath for, literally,
days and then we have forgotten about the shooting that
occurred just before it and probably will forget about the next
one as well.
Mrs. McBath. Thank you.
Ms. Rand, we know that assault weapons are the weapons of
choice for mass shooters. What do we know about why they choose
these weapons?
Ms. Rand. I think that the firepower that assault weapons
affords a shooter gives them more bravery. They feel like they
can outgun law enforcement, and I would go back to the example
that was offered about Columbine--that it is a little-known
fact there were armed guards at Columbine who engaged in fire
with Harris and Klebold but were unable to stop them because
they were outgunned by the assailants' assault weapons.
So, I think it provides them with a sense of bravery that
they wouldn't otherwise have. They know they can confront law
enforcement.
They know they can kill a number of people very quickly and
I think also if you look at the marketing of these weapons they
are sold using militarized imagery. Now we are seeing
assailants who copy that. They come with body armor.
Chair Nadler. The time of the gentlelady has expired.
Mrs. McBath. Thank you.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman from Colorado?
Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and of course, thank you
to my colleague, Mrs. McBath, who always speaks truth to power
in such an incredible way.
Chief Brackney, you mentioned this a minute ago, but I just
want to give you a chance to expound a bit further. How long
have you been in law enforcement?
Chief Brackney. Thank you. A woman shouldn't tell her age,
but 35 years, and maybe they hired me when I was really young.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Neguse. How long have you been chief?
Chief Brackney. So, I have been the chief of
Charlottesville now for just about 15 months. I was the chief
in George Washington University three years prior to that and
just short of 31 years with the city of Pittsburgh, commanding
our SWAT teams, major crimes, et cetera.
Mr. Neguse. Well, thank you for your service. The reason
why I asked that, my colleague from Florida on this side of the
aisle, I thought, was right to point out during her
parliamentary inquiry or point of order request, I took umbrage
at the way in which my colleague interacted with you in the
prior exchange--that someone of your caliber and someone who
has served your community and your country, who is here today
to testify on the importance of us taking common sense steps to
prevent the pervasive gun violence that is ravaging communities
across our country, I did not think that that exchange was
reflective of the way in which this Committee and its Members
ought to conduct itself. So, I thank you again for being here
today and for your testimony.
I also, of course, would associate myself with the remarks
of my esteemed colleague from Georgia. Military-style assault
weapons have no place in civilian hands, in my view. They have
no place in schools, in theaters, and in communities, and in
Colorado we know this all too well.
I happen to represent the great State of Colorado and we
lived through Columbine 20 years ago where 13 individuals were
killed in a matter of 16 minutes. We grieved after Aurora where
12 people were killed, and 58 others injured.
Military-style assault weapons are designed to kill people
quickly and efficiently, and large-capacity magazines are often
the choice for mass shooters because they allow the shooter to
fire a large number of rounds and quickly reload.
Inaction on this issue, as so many of my colleagues have
said and as so many of the witnesses have attested to, it is
putting our students, our children, and our community in harm's
way and I, for one, believe that we cannot allow it.
When we see mass shootings in the news every single month,
we know that it is time to act. We owe it to those we have lost
and to the survivors, some of whom are here in the audience
today--the survivors of Columbine, of Aurora, of Las Vegas, of
Orlando, of Newtown, of Sutherland Springs, of Parkland, of El
Paso.
We owe it to them, and I am grateful to Chair and to my
colleagues for holding this hearing so that we can take action.
I will say the difference between my home State and
Congress is that Colorado had the courage to act. In Colorado,
we passed a high-capacity magazine ban in 2013 as part of a
broad attempt to reform gun laws following the Aurora Theater
shooting the year before.
It is past time for Congress to take up these same reforms
and I am so grateful to be able to support the proposal that we
have talked about today in terms of banning assault weapons.
So, my question--Mr. Chipman, first, thank you for your
service and as a law enforcement officer for putting your life
on the line. I know, given your experience, that you have seen,
you have used these weapons that we are speaking of today.
Why do you believe it is important that we have a
conversation now about assault weapons and what about your
experiences have led you to believe that we need reform?
Mr. Chipman. Because they are getting more lethal, and we
should have had this conversation decades ago. The firearms
industry continues to make more lethal firearms and Congress is
not keeping up with technology.
We see that in now smaller weaponry like my panel member
likes to have because it is easy to carry around in our car. It
was used to kill a Milwaukee police officer because it was able
to defeat his bulletproof vest.
So, to me, we should not tip the scales on the side of just
convenience but of our right to live in a country absent of
fear of getting shot and killed in the line of duty, at a movie
theater, or just in your daily affairs.
Mr. Neguse. With that, I see my time is close to expiring,
Mr. Chair. So, I will just, again, say thank you to Chair and
to the witnesses today for appearing and for your testimony. We
appreciate it.
Chair Nadler. The gentleman yields back. The gentlelady
from Pennsylvania, Ms. Dean? No? I am sorry. The gentlelady
from Texas, Ms. Escobar.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you, Ms.
Dean, so much, for switching with me.
I want to thank everyone here, people who traveled to be
here with us today at this very important hearing, people who
stood in a long line for a long time to get in. I want to thank
our panel. I want to especially thank the panelist who is my
constituent, Dr. Alex Rios-Tovar. Thank you for being here.
Thank you for everything you did to save so many lives.
As we have heard today, there are far too many people on
this Judiciary Committee who represent communities that have
been impacted by gun violence, and my community, El Paso,
Texas, is, unfortunately, now part of that very sad and tragic
club. On the day of the shooting, August 3rd, I received many
calls from colleagues who knew only too well what we were going
through in El Paso, and the very next day, Dayton entered that
awful club, and days later, Odessa entered that awful club.
Part of why I invited you, Dr. Rios-Tovar, to come here, I
wanted the American people and the Congress to hear your
testimony because too often we don't understand what happens,
literally, to people who are shot up by these weapons of mass
destruction.
I want to say something before I ask you the question I am
about to ask you. That day, on August 3rd, El Paso was a victim
not just of a gun violence epidemic but we were also victim to
the hate epidemic of this country. Last week we passed
legislation, we marked up legislation out of this Committee
that began to address that hate epidemic. It was shocking to me
that some of the people who use the language that fuels that
hate epidemic were wondering why we needed to pass laws about
the hate epidemic.
As long as we have people pushing that language and that
racism, we will need laws that protect communities like mine.
As long as we have people who say, ``I deserve to have a weapon
of mass destruction so that I can shoot critters,'' as we have
heard today, or ``so that I can have an accessory, like
shoes,'' as we have heard today, then we will continue to see
massacres and bloodshed.
We are here today to create change, so that communities
like mine will not have to endure what we endured, because the
consequence is long-lasting.
Dr. Rios-Tovar, you have told us about what you witnessed
that day, what you lived through that day. Can you share with
us what you emotionally and mentally still live with today, as
a first responder in health care?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Thank you for that question. I am not
embarrassed to say that that Sunday I bawled like a child for
half an hour. I went through the Facebook page of one of those
victims and saw that that baby is going to live without
parents. It is an orphan now. That week, once my patients were
extubated, no longer on the ventilator, they had at least a
week of nightmares. They would wake up in the middle of the
night, while I was there on call, and I heard from nurses, and
I would see it myself, the nightmares that they would awaken
from.
I have not been able to sleep for the past two months since
this tragic event happened. I encourage all those that are
affected by a tragedy like this to go and seek counseling,
because it is important to recognize that not just the victims
and the victims' families, but those first responders, even
those that are not present, there is a lot of guilt that comes
to providers who were not available to respond, because they
feel that they should have been there to help as well.
So, there is a lot of room for therapy and for counseling
for the entire community, and I think it is very helpful.
Ms. Escobar. Dr. Rios-Tovar, thank you so much for
everything you did to save all the lives and to touch all the
lives that you did. You are a hero. All these deaths and all of
this pain was needless, and we can change that today. Thank
you.
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
from Pennsylvania.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank all the testifiers
and the advocates for being here, and I thank the advocates or
the testifiers for the minority, because you proved how weak
your argument is.
Mr. Chair, I wanted to look at--and if I could have a slide
brought up--a little bit of the history of this conversation
and where this country stood. Take a look, and I quote, ``We
are writing to urge your support for a ban on the domestic
manufacture of military-style assault weapons. Statistics prove
that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less
accessible to criminals. We urge you to listen to the American
public, law enforcement, and support a ban on the further
manufacture of these weapons. Sincerely, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy
Carter, and Ronald Reagan.''
This should not be a political issue.
In 2004, we had the opportunity to save even more lives by
reauthorizing the ban. Even George W. Bush favored an extension
of this lifesaving law. Would you play the clip?
[Pause.]
Ms. Dean. I am sorry. I guess we don't have it. Could you
hold the clock? Is that possible? Do we have the clip? It is a
clip of President George W. Bush.
[Pause.]
Ms. Dean. I see we are having problem with the volume. Oh,
there we go.
[Audio plays.]
Ms. Dean. Unfortunately, President George W. Bush was not
able to persuade enough of his Republican colleagues, and the
ban expired through inaction. This should not be a political
debate.
I will tell you what has changed and what has made it a
political debate among politicians only, not among Americans.
More than 500,000 Americans have died from gun violence.
America has suffered more than 300 mass shootings per year. The
NRA ramped up its lobbying of Republican Members. Republican
Members on this very committee, 17 of whom the NRA spent a
record, excuse me, spending a record $54 million in 2016
elections alone, and every single member of the Republican side
of this dais has accepted campaign contributions and other
support, to a total of $1.2 million, total.
We know now that no atrocity convinces our Republican
colleagues to reject NRA funding and to do what is right--not
Sandy Hook, not Parkland, not Las Vegas, not Tree of Life, not
El Paso, not Dayton--and I could go on and on. One party has
made this a priority, and it is us. It shouldn't be us alone.
It is a question of our common humanity. I am a mother and
a grandmother, so I will ask a couple of quick questions, if I
may. I would like to start with Mr. Chipman. How does a pistol
grip and barrel shroud make it more likely a mass shooter will
be able to kill many people?
Mr. Chipman. Well, as Senator Cruz has demonstrated, a
barrel of an AR-15 can get really hot if you try to cook bacon
on it, so imagine if you are a determined killer and you are
firing hundreds of rounds. This would allow you to grip the
firearm in a way that would increase your ability to spray fire
and kill more people.
Ms. Dean. To hold on to this hot weapon.
Mr. Chipman. Yes.
Ms. Dean. To maximize the lethality.
Mr. Chipman, can you provide us your thoughts on the threat
to law enforcement since you have been on both sides?
Mr. Chipman. The single biggest threat is how common now
rifle rounds have been instituted in now handguns.
Traditionally, law enforcement was wearing vests to protect
themselves from handguns that fired handgun ammunition. That
wasn't enough. The industry purposely has now created weaponry
to defeat bulletproof vests, and that is the biggest threat.
There is a bill that actually, Ms. Demings has presented, tries
to address this. We saw it already this year in Milwaukee,
where an officer, executing a warrant, he has got his vest on,
but the shooter has an AK pistol and it defeats it.
Ms. Dean. Thank you, and I will end with this thought. I am
a mother, I am a grandmother to second grader, and I have two
grandchildren coming this year. So, it is through that lens
that I take a look at--please, would you roll the tape. This is
a question of our common humanity. We have a crossed a
threshold no country should have ever crossed.
Please play the tape.
[Video shown.]
Ms. Dean. Mr. Chair, I yield back, but we will not--
Chair Nadler. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
from Florida is recognized.
Ms. Muscarsel-Powell. I apologize. Thank you, Mr. Nadler,
Chair. That video is very difficult to watch because I am also
a mother, and I lost my father to gun violence. Today, this
morning, I answered the phone right when the hearing started,
and the school was conducting an active shooter drill. My
daughter, who just turned 11 years old, tells me that if she
gets locked out of her classroom, if she is going to--
[Pause.]
Ms. Muscarsel-Powell. --if she can't get into the classroom
she would try to talk to the shooter and tell him or her to
remember his little brother or sister, to not shoot. This is
what our children now have to live with.
I wasn't planning on starting my testimony with that story,
but--
I want to share a quote that I received from one of my
constituents. He is an ER doctor. He works in the Homestead
Baptist Health System, Dr. Woltanski. He told me that, quote,
``Assault weapons do a tremendous amount of damage to the human
body. The tissue damage and destruction are exponentially worse
than a conventional handgun.'' From the carnage that he has
personally witnessed he says that assault weapons, quote, ``are
not defensive weapons. They are offensive weapons, designed to
inflict death, tissue damage, and devastation on the human
body, and that is what they do very effectively,'' end quote.
That is clearly what military-style weapons are designed
for. We have seen these weapons of war being used in places
like Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are now being used in our
very own communities, taking the lives of our children, our
parents, our brothers, our sisters. It has to stop, and there
is something that we can do here, in Congress, today.
Ms. Muller, you said earlier, which really struck me, you
said you were describing a gun and you said, ``I love this
little gun.'' It is time to love our children more. We have to
take action. That is why we are having this hearing today,
because there is a way to protect our children and our
communities. It is by passing stricter gun laws.
I am not done here.
Ms. Muller. With me?
Ms. Muscarsel-Powell. No, no. Please.
In Florida, the pain of losing our loved ones strikes home,
very close to home, close to my district. We have had two
recent mass shootings that resulted in 65 deaths--65 people
that lost their lives. In Parkland, last Valentine's Day, on
February 14th, a shooter using an AR-15-style rifle opened fire
on high school students that day, and in six minutes the
shooter, with his assault weapon, killed 17 people--17 kids,
including a coach--and injured 17 others.
In 2016, at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a shooter using
another military-style rifle, fired into a crowd. With the
assault weapon he killed 49 people and injured 53 others in a
matter of minutes. And in the Pulse nightclub that night was
Jerry Wright, the son of my very good friends, Fred and M.J.
Wright. He was a wonderful, loving, caring son. He was there to
have a good time, to enjoy Latin music that night. And his life
was cruelly taken. He was only 31 years old, and I know that
M.J. and Fred live with that pain every single day.
Jerry didn't deserve this. His parents didn't deserve this.
Because the shooter was able to obtain that military-style
rifle, he delivered a devastating fate to the Wright family
that day.
These are weapons of war, period, full stop. They don't
belong in our communities.
Now, I want to ask Dr. Rios-Tovar, I have spoken to doctors
in my district who have described these terrible injuries. Can
you just elaborate what a gunshot wound from an assault rifle
looks like, compared to that of a handgun?
Ms. Jackson Lee. [Presiding.] The gentlelady's time has
expired. The witness may answer the question.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Like I said earlier, these types of
injuries, you can't necessarily see on the outside. That one
victim that perished had a single gunshot to the back and out
the clavicular area. It looks like a simple through-and-
through, not so much going on. Once that autopsy was done, we
saw that a hole the size of my fist was through her lung, the
apex of the lung, and there was nothing I could do from that
point.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I thank all our Members. I think the witnesses can see the
deepness of the passion permeates so many of us. I have been in
the United States Congress for 24 years, and that means that I
have a lot of personal wounds that do not, in any way, reflect
the victims of gun violence who lost their lives. I was here
for Columbine, when so many said that we were going to do
something.
Let me read this into the record. ``Between September 25th
and October 1st, the day of the shooting, he stockpiled an
arsenal of weapons, associated equipment, and ammunition that
included 14 AR-15 rifles, all of which were equipped with bump
stocks, 12 of which had 100-round magazines, 8 had AR-10
rifles, a bolt-action rifle, and a revolver. A bump stock
modifies a semi-automatic weapon so that it can shoot in rapid
succession, mimicking automatic fire.''
Mayor, thank you. You are on the ground. Tell us what might
have happened if your officers had not run into the face of
danger. I have a lot of questions, and so I welcome you going
right to it, because we know it. I want the record to have it,
to know how they saved lives but how they had to run directly
in danger.
Ms. Whaley. Thank you, Representative. The seven officers
that ran to stop the shooter in 32 seconds saved countless
lives, because where they stopped the shooter was right outside
an entryway to a bar that hundreds had already shoved in and
had no way of getting out. If we did not have, as I like to
say, six good guys with guns, the amount of damage and death
that would have happened could have been in the hundreds.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You had a ban guy armed with an automatic
weapon.
Ms. Whaley. Exactly. You know, he still, in 32 seconds,
even with those officers there, killed 9 and injured dozens
more.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you. You are here supporting a ban
on assault weapons?
Ms. Whaley. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Chief, you heard me describe what the
shooter in Las Vegas had. Mounted on a post, almost like he was
in war, on a mountain, hiding, so that those who were making
their way up would be in the range of danger. Tell me what, in
God's name, one could imagine that any civilian needed those
weapons, which resulted in 58 dead and the danger and loss of
life even of law enforcement who had to run toward that danger.
Chief Brackney. Absolutely. What he had was the ability to
literally inflict the most amount of damage and be stable doing
it. It is kind of hard to hold a weapon indefinitely. The
weight starts to get to you. When you have the stabilizers and
all the other things that assist you, you can do that for a
very long time.
When you want to talk about running towards danger, five
officers were shot as they ran into the Tree of Life,
attempting to disarm and neutralize the individual who then had
killed 11 people at that point in time.
Ms. Jackson Lee. He had an automatic weapon?
Chief Brackney. He had one of those as part of those. He
used predominantly his handgun there.
Ms. Jackson Lee. He was armed with such that he could
continue.
Chief Brackney. That is exactly correct, that he had done
the type of damage that he had done. Absolutely.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You are an MD as well?
Chief Brackney. Oh, no. No. That is the distinguished one.
I am a Ph.D.
Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. You are a Ph.D.
Chief Brackney. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, we are grateful for your service
with that knowledge as chief.
Let me go to Dr. Rios-Tovar and let me offer you my
sympathy. I am Texan. I came to El Paso. I saw some of your
mastery in those who were alive. I visited victims in both
hospitals who had those heinous shots, and I saw the personal
wounds of their spirit, but, as well, the physical wounds.
So, let me pose this for my good friends. I welcome the
opposition testimony. That is what it is. I respect them
because they are Americans. I am adamantly against assault
weapons. I believe in a buy-back. I have no shame in that. And
I believe that we can do this as Americans. I ask the National
Rifle Association to stand with Americans.
Let me give you this picture. Sandy Hook and the babies
from 6 and 7 years old, were shot with an automatic weapon.
Babies, first-graders. I am sorry to ask you this. What kind of
wound would a child's body receive from an automatic weapon?
You saw adults, and I am not sure if you saw a child. I know
someone was wounded. Tell me about the size of the body, the
mass of the body, and that bullet going into a child.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. It is not something I would even want to
think about imagining, but it would just be devastating. It is
not something that I can answer. I am sorry.
Ms. Jackson Lee. It would be worse than you could imagine.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. Yeah.
Ms. Jackson Lee. What it would be is an adult having a
cavity--you were trying to explain. That is big holes in the
body. Is that, not right?
Dr. Rios-Tovar. That is correct.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So, the mass of an adult is one or two or
three times that of a child. I am not a physician. So, in the
essence of a child, maybe the child physically would not be
able to be contained.
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I would--
Ms. Jackson Lee. Trying to put it in its--
Dr. Rios-Tovar. I would just be too horrific to describe.
Ms. Jackson Lee. These are the assault weapons that we are
here today trying to ban. To the witnesses, to Mr. Chipman, let
me thank you. I did not ask you, but I am familiar with the
National Firearm Act, and I think it can be a source of
amendment for many of our legislative initiatives. I do believe
in the enforcing of legislation in terms of gun trafficking,
which makes some of our cities like Chicago and L.A. and other
victims, because the guns are trafficked.
I want to read this into the record as I thank the
witnesses. Assault weapons account for 430, or 85 percent of
the total 501 mass shooting fatalities. This is done by a group
of doctors. This is research. In a linear regression model,
controlling for yearly trend, the Federal ban period was
associated with a statistically significant 9 fewer mass
shootings related per 10,000. Mass shooting fatalities were 70
percent less likely to occur during the Federal ban on assault
weapons.
The science is clear. The evidence is clear. The murder of
our fellow Americans, the loss of life. The victims that are in
this audience that have to listen over and over and over again
about why we are not acting. We owe them something. This
Committee is willing to pay the debt.
I thank each and every one of you for staying this long and
helping us to provide the testimony that will have us write, as
we have already done, and pass an assault weapons ban.
This concludes today's hearing. We thank all our witnesses
for participating. Without objection, all Members will have
five legislative days to submit additional written questions
for the witnesses or additional materials for the record.
With all our thanks, without objection, this hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereas, at 1:40 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
=======================================================================
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ryan Servaites, March For Our Lives Co-Founder & Policy Fellow
House Judiciary Committee Hearing
February 14th, 2:21 p.m.-2:21 p.m. is the official time
that the Broward County Police Department says a shooter
entered the freshman building of my high school, Marjory
Stoneman Douglas. About 7 minutes later, at 2:28 p.m., the
shooter had left the building, and with it, he left 17 of my
classmates and teachers lying dead in the halls and classrooms
that they used to call home. 17 innocent souls. 14 Teenagers.
And 17 more injured, some not sure if they would survive the
horrific wounds that they had sustained. That was my freshman
year of high school. I was barely 15 years old. And I walked
out of school that day not knowing how many classmates had lost
their lives. Not knowing that 17 families would never see their
loved ones again, that they would never be able to give them
one last hug, one last kiss, one last embrace before they were
taken away. That night, I slept with my door open, and although
at the time I probably wouldn't have wanted to admit it, I was
terrified. 7 minutes. 7 minutes is all it took for a shooter to
end 17 lives. 7 minutes is all it took to injure 17 high school
students and to traumatize an entire city.
Think about that for one second. 17 people injured, and 17
people left dead in 7 minutes. How in the world did a shooter
inflict so much damage in so little time? He used an AR-15
style assault rifle, the weapon of choice for those who commit
heinous crimes similar to the horrific events that happened at
my school. The AR-15, and weapons like it, have been used in
the deadliest mass shootings in American history, from the
Pulse nightclub shooting, a horrendous act of hate that left 49
dead, to the Las Vegas shooting, which took 58 lives, to the
Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, which took 27 lives, mostly
young children (Appendix A).
Gun violence is a complicated and multifaceted epidemic.
Yet the magnitude of this epidemic is undeniably in part a
result of the capacity for death that these assault weapons
have. According to Bushmaster's own user manual, an AR-15 can
fire off 45 rounds per minute. In the wrong hands, that is a
potential 45 lives gone, 45 families destroyed, and entire
communities with broken hearts, all in the span of 60 seconds.
This is a weapon with a maximum effective range of 600 meters
that has the ability to not just pierce tissue, but to shatter
bone, to tear massive gaping holes in the flesh of innocent
civilians just going about their daily lives, and as a result,
to tear similarly gaping holes into the hearts of communities
and families across the country. I fully understand the desire
to keep oneself and one's family safe; in fact, I sympathize
with it quite a lot. But if shattering bones and causing organs
to explode doesn't seem excessive, then I don't know what
could.
Whenever someone falls victim to gun violence, entire
communities suffer, and friends and families learn a pain that
no one should ever have to learn. Assault weapons have the
capacity to inflict this pain on a mass scale. Just imagine it
for one second. Put yourself in the shoes of a parent, sibling,
or friend who just found out that they had lost a loved one
forever, that a person who filled them with joy and happiness
is now gone. How would you feel? What would you do? Imagine
finding out that your child will never come back home from
school or from going out with their friends. What would you do
to save your child? What lengths would you go to, with the
power that you have, that the people of this country have
trusted you with, in order to make sure that no one would ever
have to feel the pain of losing someone that means so much to
you? This is a pain that too many Americans, too many human
beings experience every single day. You have the power to at
least say that you tried, that you struggled, that you pushed
and fought tooth and nail in the name of all those victims,
families, and communities.
These are weapons of war. These are weapons of hate. These
are weapons of terror and pretending that there is no
legislative route to trying to stop, or at least reduce, the
damage from these mass shootings isn't just irresponsible, it's
unacceptable. That is why we at March For Our Lives
unequivocally support H.R. 1296 The Assault Weapons Ban of
2019.
I was in my Spanish class when the fire alarm went off on
February 14th. I walked out of the school with my class, like
it was any other fire drill, yet before I knew it, I was
huddled down under a seat in our school auditorium, texting my
parents goodbye, telling them I loved them.
Looking around at the faces of the crouching children
beside me, not knowing if these would be the last people I
would ever interact with. Not knowing if I would be able to go
home and hug my parents and my siblings, and tell them that I
loved them, that I was happy to see them, that everything would
be okay. I was lucky. 17 others were not. The rest of that
year, because we lost a building full of classrooms, I had to
spend every other day back in that auditorium, back in that
place that I was terrified would be the last place I would ever
see. I'm not just asking for change; I'm begging for it.
Begging, because I don't want to live in a country where every
other day I read about another community destroyed, another
group of innocent lives ripped away from us. As Americans we
owe it ourselves to do better, and we can.
H.R. 1296 is a first step, and although I cannot say for
sure that it would have prevented what happened at my school,
it definitely would have helped mitigate the damage. Saving
lives should be the top priority of this Congress and this
Committee who are tasked with protecting the safety of the
American people. We deserve action from a Congress that so far
has shown itself to be complacent in these acts of horror, and
in this case, change is knocking at your door.
As a young activist, I am proud to say that I am part of a
generation committed to change, focu ed on action, that cares
about each other so much that we are willing to demonstrate and
advocate on behalf of the experiences and trauma of one
another. We've done our part. We've done the research, we've
put in the work, we've organized, advocated, protested for the
vision of a world where we are not afraid to go to school or to
spend time with friends. We've proposed our Peace Plan for a
Safer America, our comprehensive bold national approach to our
nation's gun violence epidemic, crafted around this vision of
what our world could, and should, be. It's a vision of the
world where we can feel safe, where we can feel and be secure,
as is our right. A world where 16-year-olds like me don't have
to help comfort a friend because of a loud noise, a world where
kids can be kids and not have to think about, much less prepare
for, a potential mass shooting. To see a friend break down
because of a fire alarm going off, to see an entire cafeteria
full of people suddenly freeze up in anxious fear in response
to a loud noise; these are traumas that no one should have to
live through. Yet every day that we don't do something about
this issue is another day that breeds more trauma, pain, and
loss. These are not just assault weapons.
They are family destroyers. They are child killers. They
are the medium by which trauma spreads like wildfire throughout
our Nation of terrified worshippers, of anxious school
children, of people absolutely on edge, as a result of living
their lives. Not a single 14-year-old should spend their final
moments staring down the barrel of a machine that won't just
take away their life, but that will do so in a horrendous and
vicious way. These are horrific, gruesome weapons that have the
ability to inflict pain with a magnitude far too large for
comfort. This is our moment. This is our moment, as a nation,
that we say enough is enough, and that we decide that giving a
single individual the ability to take away the lives of 17
others in the span of a few minutes absolutely absurd. The
people of America are dying. The children of America are dying.
My classmates are already dead. It's about time we do something
about it.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
FCNL Statement to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee,
pertaining to its hearing:
The Friends Committee on National Legislation's (FCNL)
Quaker faith compels us to seek a society where every person's
potential may be fulfilled. We believe that through the Spirit
there is always a chance for reconciliation, rehabilitation and
personal transformation. Too often, the presence of guns at
critical times cuts short potential opportunities for
redirection and renewal, resulting in tragic consequences.
These principles guide our work on gun violence prevention.
More specifically, these values lead FCNL to urge Congress to
pass legislation that would ban assault weapons.
Military style weapons are specifically designed to be used
in a battlefield. There is no reason they should exist in our
communities or our streets. Created for combat, assault weapons
are designed to kill large numbers of people in a short period
of time. As such, they are used disproportionately in mass
shootings. Some of the deadliest mass shootings in America were
committed with assault weapons: Las Vegas, NV; Orlando, FL;
Newtown, CT; and Sutherland Springs, TX are just a few
examples. Today, anyone can buy an assault weapon from
unlicensed private sellers, including people with criminal
records.
A study of mass shootings between 1981 and 2017 found that
assault rifles accounted for 86 percent of the 501fatalities
reported in 44 mass shooting incidents.\1\ A 2018 study found
that mass shooting fatalities were 70 percent less likely to
occur between 1994 to 2004 when the assault weapons ban was in
effect.\2\ Further, an assault weapons ban would have prevented
314 of 448 mass shooting deaths that happened before or after
the federal assault weapons ban of 1994.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ https://everytownresearch.org/assault-weapons-high-capacity-
magazines/I/foot_note_6.
\2\ DiMaggio, C., Avraham, J., Berry C., et al. Changes in US mass
shooting deaths associated with the 1994-2004 Federal Assault Weapons
Ban: analysis of open-source data. Journal of Trauma and Acute Care
Surgery. 2019 Jan.; 86(1):11-19. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
30188421.
\3\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Less access to assault weapons could result in less lethal
or fewer crimes. Research on this issue remains scarce, and we
need more information in order to learn more. However, a 2017
study estimated that, when taken together, assault weapons and
high capacity magazines account for 22-36 percent of guns used
in crimes.\4\ It's only by reducing the amount and deadliness
of weapons in our society that we can make progress towards
making our communities safer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Koper, C., Johnson, W., Nichols, J., et al. Criminal Use of
Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Semiautomatic Firearms: An Updated
Examination of Local and National Sources. Journal of Urban Health.
2018 June; 95(3): 313-321. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/
s11524-017-0205-7.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
An assault weapons ban is a necessary step to reducing gun
violence in our communities, particularly the most gruesome
violence. Congress must uphold its moral obligations and take
meaningful action to prevent more tragic violence at the hands
of guns. We urge Congress to mark up and pass the Assault
Weapons Ban of 2019 (H.R. 1296). We are long past the time for
Congressional action on this issue. The level of gun violence
that we see across our country is not normal, and it is not
outside of our control. Only by enacting substantive
legislation can we begin to tackle the complex problem of gun
violence in our country and our society. There is no need for
weapons of war to be in our communities and in our streets. We
are ready to work with Congress to help make this a reality.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]