Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. WENSTRUP. Madam Speaker, next week will mark 5 years since the fateful morning on the baseball field where 136 rounds were fired in an attack on Republicans. Only by the grace of God were 20 or more of my Republican colleagues and staff not killed by a crazed terrorist wielding guns on that baseball field. So this is not a theoretical exercise for many of us on this side of the aisle.

I say this not to take away from the tragedies that any one of us has experienced, but to highlight the good people on both sides of this issue can bring our personal experiences to the debate and may see things differently, while both condemning violence and wanting to act.

When I reflect on that day, it is not about the weapon. It is about the person, the evil person that is on the other side of that weapon. It was guns that stopped that killer--two undercover Capitol police officers. They were only there because Steve Scalise was there. And he got hit. Otherwise, that terrorist could have easily assassinated 20 to 30 Members of Congress and staff.

Clearly, there are people I don't want to have a gun in their hands but we can't ignore the hate, the evil that is gripping too many in our country today. We have laws against murder. Yet, we see murder.

If my little daughter hits her big brother, I want to know why. I don't blame the stick in her hand. As a physician, common sense tells me that if we don't look at the events in someone's life that lead to the thoughts and the feelings that then lead to this horrific murderous behavior, then we are doing our society a grave injustice. And that is what is happening. We have seen this movie before.

Did these laws change the disturbing trends that we are seeing? Previous bans have made no difference. It has been proven. Many of our communities have gun laws and have even more homicides than ever.

We as Americans need to do some serious soul-searching about ourselves because something serious has changed in our society over the last several decades.

Is it the absence of God?

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Mr. WENSTRUP. Madam Speaker, we had a public school in my district that was forced by the left and the courts to take down ``thou shalt not kill'' from in front of the schools.

Is it the breakdown of the family, the disruption of the community, the implosion of the village? Or is it the destruction of our mental health system, which, unfortunately, turned everyone onto the streets instead of reforming our institutions?

It could be all these things and many more, but until America is willing to take a long, hard look at ourselves and heal what truly ails us, I fear we are simply doomed to repeat what we have done in the past and we are doing here today.

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