During Thursday’s House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee’s hearing on the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Administration (ATF)’s actions on gun control, U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise) criticized the Biden administration for trying to take away gun rights.
Instead of going after violent criminals and the cartels controlling our open southern border, the Biden Administration is attacking law-abiding citizens who use firearms to protect their families. We must defend the Second Amendment!
See my @JudiciaryGOP remarks below ? pic.twitter.com/fWv6pZxkRD
— Rep. Barry Moore (@RepBarryMoore) March 23, 2023
“In the last year, we have had 107,000 opioid overdoses,” Moore said. “That (makes opioids) the number one killer of people between the ages of 18 and 45. Based on testimony we’ve been hearing about the open border, those victims are getting younger and younger. If we really care about young people in this country dying, we need to address the opioid crisis instead of trying to come after law-abiding citizens (who own firearms).”
Witnesses in the hearing included Amy Swearer, legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation; Alex Bosco, the founder and inventor of Stabilizing Brace; Matthew Larosiere, partner at Zermay-Larosiere Law Group; and Rob Wilcox, senior director of policy at Everytown for Gun Safety.
The congressman asked Swearer if the gun control measures being proposed would actually stop gun violence.
“Are you aware of any law that could stop gun violence?” he asked. “Is there a law that we could pass in this country that will actually stop murders?”
Swearer said, “Congressman, even if you could pass a law outright banning guns, you’d still have to be able to snap your fingers to make them disappear out of the hands of violent criminals. It would be an impossibility to eliminate gun violence. We can certainly work on getting guns out of the hands of violent criminals and enabling law-abiding citizens to defend themselves with that lethal force, as is their natural and their constitutional right, but to suggest that we can somehow eliminate gun violence — you’re talking about eliminating human nature and the propensity that violent people have to commit crimes.”
Moore said more gun control laws do not result in safer communities.
“I moved to D.C. and I’m here part time, I’ve only been in Congress 24 months, but you guys I feel so much less safe here, and they’re pretty restrictive on firearms, so much less safe here than I do in the hometowns I grew up in and the cities in my state” Moore said. “Because, number one, normally we’re carrying concealed so we’re safe in that respect.
“But just the crime that we’re seeing in the cities where they think they can pass the law to change human morality is just staggering to me. And the statistics simply do not support that approach.”
Alabama @RepBarryMoore fighting for 2A rights at the House ATF hearing today in DC. pic.twitter.com/cc2hgRujyo
— American Firearms Association (@2A_Freedom) March 23, 2023
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
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