During a House Judiciary Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) spoke about 'gun-free zones'.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I'm going to yield it back to Mr. Jordan who's gone and so the time has expired and now I
00:05recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Laura Lee.
00:09I'm sorry, Florida.
00:10I'm sorry.
00:11What did I say?
00:12California.
00:13Oh, gracious.
00:14Uh-oh.
00:15Understandable mistake, Mr. Chairman.
00:17I will yield my time to the chairman.
00:21Ms. Mueller, are people who want to restrict Second Amendment rights supportive of women's
00:26rights?
00:27Negative.
00:28How so?
00:30Well, like I mentioned in my opener, that we are smaller and less equipped for violence
00:35and that is why women are the fastest growing demographic of gun owners.
00:40It levels the playing field and if anybody thinks that they don't need a firearm or chooses
00:46not to have a firearm, that's their choice, but they're going to do so from a place of
00:50privilege because they may have security or they may live in a community that doesn't
00:56necessarily need to have security, but not all of us can afford to have our own security,
01:01therefore we have to take it in our own hands and I know mothers that refuse to outsource
01:07the security of their children and like Mr. Spalwell said, school shootings and all of
01:13those shootings that you mentioned, I was trying to keep up with you, but I was thinking
01:17gun-free zone, gun-free zone, gun-free zone, gun-free zone.
01:21Obviously gun-free zones do not work, they're dangerous, they're deadly and we can protect
01:25our children and we can not traumatize our children.
01:29There's a program called Faster Saves Lives and I would love to discuss that with you.
01:35And Mr. McDermott, should law enforcement officers be allowed to carry a firearm in
01:40gun-free school zones or on public transportation?
01:44Absolutely.
01:48And would you...
01:49I'm sorry, I was just going to further along those lines.
01:52I'm going to get back to that in a second.
01:54There's two questions I really want to get here.
01:58Okay, yeah, Ms. Muller, would you have liked the option to purchase your service weapon
02:05when you retired as a police officer?
02:07Yes, sir.
02:08Okay.
02:09Now, Mr. McDermott, I saw you writing furiously when my colleague from California was iterating
02:16various shootings and I wondered what in the devil were you writing and what would be your
02:21response?
02:22All right, loaded question, no pun intended, but I just...
02:30When Mr. Swallow was indicating, kept on asking, was it self-defense here, was it self-defense
02:35here, was it self-defense here?
02:38It just kept hitting me a particular way.
02:40If there had been some form of self-defense, if somebody had been able to defend themselves
02:44in those particular areas, if somebody had actually done so, we wouldn't have been naming
02:50off these higher numbers.
02:52Instead, to Ms. Muller's point, and what I stand by myself, is we have all these different
02:57gun-free zones, which is basically a fallacy.
03:00They do nothing to make our communities safer.
03:03They basically leave the good defenseless against criminals, law-abiding citizens defenseless
03:08against criminals, and they take advantage of it.
03:10They take full advantage of it.
03:14How difficult is it for someone traveling across state lines to know what the self-defense
03:18laws are in each state?
03:22It's incredibly difficult.
03:23I'll tell you, when I said at the very beginning, I've lectured in front of thousands of people
03:26now, one of the very first questions I ask after defining whether people in the room
03:30know what it is to be able to use lethal force and when you're entailed to use lethal force
03:34to defend yourself, one of the very first questions I ask in these different jurisdictions
03:37is who in the room knows which type of jurisdiction they reside in?
03:41Very often, people are confused.
03:43Very often, in certain states, which are very anti-firearm, which are very anti-police, many
03:47people believe in those jurisdictions that they're automatically a duty retreat.
03:52That's also something that's argued by prosecutors in these particular states, even if they have
03:57Stand Your Ground law.
03:58Your client or this defendant could have actually retreated, could have gotten to a safer place.
04:02The reason that this client, she's being charged, is because she discharged her firearm because
04:06she shot this person.
04:07That's not why, that's not appropriate, that's not proper.
04:11It's not even correct and it continues to happen.
04:15Looking at ATF, what actions do you think ATF under President Trump need to be prioritized?
04:24What actions under the ATF?
04:25I mean, I really, that's a loaded question.
04:28I think that we are, we need to stop, we need to stop first and foremost, we need to stop
04:32attacking law-abiding citizens with respect to their ownership of firearms.
04:37We need to recognize that people have a right to defend themselves.
04:39We need to recognize that we are not in a position, nobody's in a position to tell people
04:43how they can and can't defend themselves.
04:46In that respect, we have to stop with this campaign to continuously collect firearms
04:51from law-abiding citizens.
04:52You need to do a bit more research into this and you need to make sure that we're not crossing
04:56lines in those particular times.
04:59Ms. Mueller, same question.
05:02Well, I don't know about the ATF specifically, but I'll address the Office of Gun Violence
05:09Prevention.
05:10I actually wanted to rename that to the Office of Violence Prevention because we're all against
05:15violence.
05:17Guns are inanimate objects and they do not, they're not violent in and of themselves.
05:22And I think that, you know, Mira O'Connell, who was the one who defended herself from
05:27the serial rapist and took his gun, that is the exact opportunity for a gun to be used
05:34for good, in good hands, and for bad, for bad hands.
05:39So I would like to keep that office and use it for firearms education and actual studying.
05:48Mr. Swalwell.
05:49A unanimous consent request for a June 27, 2024 NBC News story about a former Uvalde
05:58District Chief.