Don’t expect to see this on MSNBC, CNN, or PBS. During the House Oversight Committee on gun violence in June, United States Representative Clay Higgins questioned police Commissioner Gramaglia. The questioning involved Gramaglia’s stance that he would confiscate firearms from legal gun owners under red flag laws. Higgins’ following statement is one for the record books and something you definitely won’t hear about in mainstream media.
Representative Clay Higgins Grills Commissioner Gramaglia
Following the tragedy in Buffalo earlier this year, Police Commissioner Gramaglia immediately climbed on the gun control soap box. While up there, Gramaglia used the death of the security guard to score anti-gun brownie points.
Despite evidence to the contrary, he made the claim that “a good guy with a gun” can’t stop a shooter with a “high-capacity assault weapon.”
He needs to read our story about the women who stopped an AR-15-wielding criminal at a graduation party. And she did it with a pistol. Or maybe he should read about the 22-year-old who stopped a murderer with a rifle in Indiana. From 40 yards away, with a concealed carry pistol.
He also said that the big-city police chiefs favor bans on “assault weapons” and high (standard) capacity magazines. Likewise, he stated that they also want universal background checks and improvements to the NICS. But it is his stance on red flag laws that drew the civics lesson from Representative Clay Higgins.
According to Buffalo News, “In addition, the police chiefs favor improving access to records that will allow authorities to remove guns from people who endanger themselves and others, the Buffalo police commissioner said.”
During the House Oversight Committee on gun violence, Higgins asked Gramaglia about his support for gun confiscation:
“Would you go to your neighbor’s home and confiscate his legally owned weapons, a man that was not under a criminal investigation nor under arrest? Would you do it?”
Gramaglia tried to deflect by explaining red flag laws, “The red flag laws would…” before Higgins cut him off.
“That’s a ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ brother. I got five minutes to make an hour and a half statement,” Higgins interjected.
Gramaglia replied, “It’s more than a yes or no answer.”
Representative Clay Higgins: Class is in Session
“We’ll move on then,” Higgins said before providing a lesson on red flag laws and recent gun history to Gramaglia.
What follows is some of the best 4 minutes of video never seen on the typical mainstream news. I’ll let Higgins take over from here:
“If you can’t…if you cannot say yes, you would confiscate weapons from an American citizen that was subject to this law, that my colleagues intend to push through this congress, then you…and you said in your statement that you would confiscate those weapons if an American was determined to be, your quote, ‘a threat to themselves or others.’
“According to that law, ‘determined to be’ is defined by an anonymous tip that an American citizen [is] a threat to themselves or others…” he emphasized by throwing his pen over his shoulder in frustration.
“You’re a police commissioner. A thin blue line brother. Sworn to uphold the constitution. And you’re saying you’d seize those weapons. I see that as a problem.”
A Lesson on Recent U.S. History
He continued:
“I’ma (sic) bring us back in time to World War II. America’s population 140 million. Fifteen million American men came home from World War II with deep scars and significant skills. They bore the invisible wounds of war, and there was (sic) weapons everywhere.
“I’m going to talk about mental challenge. My father was one of those men who was a navy pilot in World War II. He came back from the war and built his family. I’m the seventh of his eight children. I was born in 1961.
“We had guns everywhere. There was virtually no regulation. Any child in the 50s could buy a weapon from any seller if daddy sent them with the money. And we didn’t have mass shootings.
“Wasn’t until 1968 in America that serial numbers were even required on weapons sold in this country. You order weapons through the sears catalog by the mail. In the 70s, I attended a high school, large rural school, virtually every vehicle in the parking lot was a pickup truck. And almost every one had a rifle or shotgun on the back glass and a pistol under the seat. And we didn’t have school shootings.”
Land of the Free and Home of the Once Safe
People used to feel safe in our cities, and Higgins would like to know what happened. As would we all:
“1979, I began college. One of the jobs—I had to work my way through college—was as a carpenter. We restored historical buildings. We had to determine, in the process of that work, what was the original cuts of these homes. Residential homes built 75, 85, 100 years ago. You could tell by the saw cut if it was a mechanical cut, an electric cut, or hand cut. By such observations, we knew exactly how that house was originally built.
“And to my amazement, as a young man beginning college in Louisiana, working. To my amazement, you know what I discovered, Madame Chair? You know what these houses did not have? That were built a hundred years ago, in cities in America? You know what they did not have, commissioner? Locks. Locks.
“I ask you all what happened to that country man? A country where homes were built in cities with no locks. A country where guns were everywhere and virtually not regulated at all. Where millions of Americans, 14 million Americans came back—it’s 11 percent of the population at the time after World War II—with incredible skills of war and weapons of war, as you called them, everywhere. But we didn’t have mass shootings.
“And here we sit today where an entire once proud Democratic party is presenting unbelievably unconstitutional laws to press upon our nation. And we have a police commissioner that says he would go home to home and confiscate legally owned weapons if he got a tip.
“Madam Chair, I yield my speech, but I will not yield my opposition to these unconstitutional laws.”
Well said, Representative Higgins. Well said.
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