On February 6, the House Judiciary Committee had a hearing titled Preventing Gun Violence.  It was chaired by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who is as anti-gun as you can imagine a Liberal Democrat from New York City can be.

This hearing is significant as it is the first hearing on gun control in the House in eight years, as well as being conducted a week short of one year from the anniversary of the Parkland shooting.

What is said at this hearing is going to set the stage for whatever gun control bills the Democrats in the House come up with for the next two years, as well as whatever gun control they will push for as they ramp up campaigning for 2020.

There were a number of witnesses who testified before the House Judiciary Committee.  It was lopsided for the anti-gun side, and frankly the pro-gun witnesses were not the ones I would have chosen.

C-Span has the video of the whole four hours of the hearing.  At first I was going to cover this in one post, but that would have been a huge post and would have taken forever to write up.  Instead I’m going to tackle it in shorter posts.

The entire video is below.  Watch as much as you want, but I highly suggest you at least watch the first 12 minutes.  That is the opening statements made by the Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA).

Compare and contrast the those two opening statements.

Rep. Nadler touches on all the typical Liberal talking points.  There is too much gun violence in the US, much more compared to the rest of the developed world.  It’s a national embarrassment.  We have to do something about the guns.

Rep. Collins hammered home, again and again, how in just about every mass shooting we have seen, we have witnesses the systematic failure of government to deal with people who time and time should have been prohibited persons but were not, or passed background checks because the system failed.  It was incredible to hear him say this, especially about Nikolas Cruz, with a MSD High student at the witness table in front of him.

Rep. Collins’ mentioning of the lack of federal firearm prosecutions under President Obama was particularity on point considering a later witness testified about more laws against straw man purchases – but I’ll get to her later.

It really was a devastating opening statement, arguing that current gun control bills will not solve a single problem and will only serve to criminalize the Second Amendment.

The first witness to testify was Aalayah Eastmond.  She is a senior at MSD High and witnessed the shooting first hand.  While I have sympathy for her for what she and her family went through, afterwards she attached herself to the Brady Campaign and they filled her head with garbage.  She is now being exploited, to regurgitate that garbage before the House.

Her testimony starts at 22:13 in the above video.

*As I write up these posts, I will post time stamps so readers can watch the relevant sections.  I cannot post smaller clips from the C-Span video.  I will also post relevant text from the testimony.  I apologize that it is in all caps.  C-Span does not provide transcripts, I can only copy the closed captioning text.

For Ms. Eastmond, the Brady Campaign posted a YouTube clip of her testimony, so you don’t have to go through the above video.  If I find other such videos, I will post those as well.

MY FAMILY KNEW THIS BEFORE PARKLAND. 15 YEARS AGO IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, MY UNCLE PATRICK WAS SHOT AND KILLED. HE WAS JUST 18 YEARS OLD WITH HIS WHOLE LIFE AHEAD OF HIM. I ASK YOU GIVE MY GENERATION THE CHANCE HE NEVER HAD. MINORITY COMMUNITIES BEAR THE HEAVIEST BURDEN OF GUNMAN — GUN VIOLENCE. WE KNOW THIS AS A FACT. WEEKS AGO, A NEW REPORT SHOWED THE LIFE EXPECTANCY FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS HAS BEEN REDUCED BY FOUR YEARS ON AVERAGE BECAUSE OF GUN VIOLENCE.

First of all, we are going to see this a lot from the anti-gun side.  We must do something about guns because people of color/minority communities/black and brown people/other PC jargon are more affected by gun violence.  Hence, the failure to do something about guns is racist.

That same line of attack was used as part of the justification of the Green New Deal that climate change more adversely affects minorities communities because they are poorer so not dealing with climate change is racist.

This is gun control via social justice.

BUT THIS REPORT DIDN’T SHOW ME ANYTHING I DIDN’T ALREADY KNOW. GUN VIOLENCE IS THE EVERY DAY OCCURRENCE AND THE VAST MAJORITY OF AFFECTED COMMUNITIES ARE MINORITY COMMUNITIES. WE MUST STOP THIS SUPPLY OF GUNS AND MUST ENSURE THERE IS COMPREHENSIVE CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM TO ADDRESS THE STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY IN THE SYSTEM.

Did you catch that contradiction?  We know that 51% of homicide victims are black and over 90% of those victims’ killers were also black.  In the same breath she talks about criminal justice reform.  For the Left, that usually involves reduced sentences, drug decriminalization, ending broken windows policing, ending three strikes laws, ending stop and frisk in NYC, among other policies.  Where these have been tried, crime goes up.

“Crime will expand according to our willingness to put up with it.”  Much of criminal justice reform is putting up with more crime.  If your goal is to reduce the black homicide rate, you need to go after the criminals responsible for it.  Heavier prosecution for non-violent gun crime is key, e.g., straw purchases and carrying illegal guns.  Being easier on criminals while making it harder for law abiding citizens to buy guns won’t reduce the crime rate.

I IMPLORE YOU TO PASS LEGISLATION THAT WILL MAKE US ALL SAFER. TODAY IN AMERICA ANYONE CAN GO ON THE INTERNET ANSWER AN AD OR GO TO A GUN SHOW AND BUY A GUN WITH NO BACKGROUND CHECK REQUIRED.

That is very dubious.  While technically correct under the right, and limited circumstances, I doubt the reality of personal sales has been explained to her.

THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE. I URGE YOU TO EXPAND BRADY BACKGROUND CHECKS BY VOTING FOR HR, REQUIRING CHECKS FOR VIRTUALLY ANY GUN TRANSACTION.  THE ORIGINAL BRADY LAW PASSED WITH PARTISAN SUPPORT AND THIS SHOULD, TOO.

When an addict trades a gun he stole for drugs, and the dealer sells it to a criminal, which one of these people, knowingly committing a felony does the background check?

The number of guns used in crime that comes from gun shows or Armslist ads is less than a percent.

THE PROTECTION LAWFUL COMMERCE IN ARMS ACT ALSO KNOWN AS PLACA WAS PASSED BY CONGRESS 15 YEARS AGO. NO OTHER INDUSTRY HAS THIS PROTECTION FROM LAWSUITS. AND IT IS TIME THAT CONGRESS REPEAL THIS OUTRAGEOUS LAW.

No it should absolutely not be repealed.  This is nothing short of gun bans by lawfare.  No other industry needs this kind of protection because no other industry (so far) has been targeted for lawsuits for the deliberate misuse of their products.

The old stand by is “no judge would let the family of someone killed by a drunk driver sue Ford for making the car.”  But that is not accurate because while drunk driving is a crime, the drunk is not intending to hurt someone, it is a crime of negligence.

A better example would be a class action lawsuit brought against Boeing for the people killed and injured on 9/11.  Or perhaps a case against Bayer for making the rat poison used to commit a murder.

Of course an industry should be protected from lawsuits when their products are deliberately misused in a criminal way.  The PLCAA was a response to Liberal abuse of the courts.  Taking it down is like a bully saying to teacher “It’s not fair that Joey is hiding in the classroom, make him come outside so I can beat him up.”

CONGRESS SHOULD ENCOURAGE MORE STATES TO PASS THE LAWS. ASSAULT WEAPONS AND HIGH-CAPACITY MAGAZINES BELONG ON THE BATTLEFIELD, NOT IN OUR COMMUNITIES. MY CLASSMATES AND I HAVE SEEN HOW LETHAL THESE WEAPONS ARE. CONGRESS SHOULD RE INSTITUTE THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN.

AWBs and magazine capacity bans have done nothing to reduce crime.  I’m sorry for her situation, but the very, very small percentage of people who get their hands on an AR and do a lot of damage with it doesn’t justify the collective punishment of millions of law abiding Americas.

Congress should push for laws that end qualified immunity so shitty sheriff deputies have an incentive to actually do something about the person causing the problems.

THE SHOOTER WHO KILLED NINE PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA CHURCH SHOOTING WAS ABLE TO BUY A GUN BECAUSE HIS BACKGROUND CHECK WAS NOT COMPLETED IN THREE DAYS. MOST FEDERAL CHECKS TAKE JUST MINUTES.

And here we have gun bans by slowing down NICS to a crawl.

I ALSO URGE YOU TO ADDRESS THE CONCERNS OF BLACK AND BROWN COMMUNITIES WHO ARE DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTED BY GUN VIOLENCE.

Social justice gun control.  Maybe figuring out the root of the cause of the high crime rates in black and brown communities is a better solution.

RATHER THAN LISTEN TO SPECIAL INTERESTS, I ASK YOU TO LISTEN TO THE NATION’S YOUNG FEMALE AND — YOUNG PEOPLE AND THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITIES WHO HAVE HAD ENOUGH. WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF GUN VIOLENCE IN OUR SCHOOLS, IN OUR MOVIE THEATERS, WORSHIP PLACES, NIGHT CLUBS AND RESTAURANTS AND STREETS AND COMMUNITIES. ENOUGH. WE HAVE ALL HAD ENOUGH.

Pay attention to the anti-gun special interest groups who have filled our heads with garbage and exploited our status as victims.

I HOPE YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH TOO AND USE THE POWER THAT THE PEOPLE HAVE VESTED IN YOU TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT. OUR LIVES DEPEND ON YOU. OUR LIVES ARE IN YOUR HANDS. THANK YOU. 

No, our lives are not in Congress’ hands.  Our rights are in their hands.  You don’t save lives by eliminating rights.

She was in a Holocaust History class at the time of the shooting, she should understand how eliminating rights only increases the death toll.

Any student of the history of Prohibition would say the same thing.

She is only the first person to spew Brady gobbledygook.  A doctor uses his credentialism to do that as the third witness.

I’ll get to him in the next post because this one is long enough already.