SHOULD FIREARMS BE ALLOWED ON THE CAPITOL GROUNDS?

 

         ….This is the Freshman GOP Representative from Colorado, Lauren Boebert,

 

This lawmaker and gun-rights advocate, also owns a gun-themed restaurant

 

Now, I am not an anti-gun person.  In fact I have had a shot gun and a rifle since I was 10 years old.  They are in the back of my closet and they haven’t been used for decades, but I do still own them.  However, I was really taken aback when I watch a video of the first virtual meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee which included the passage of the committee’s 2021 rules. 

The Republicans in the committee had just offered up an amendment to remove a provision in the new rules prohibiting lawmakers from bringing firearms to their meetings.  The California Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman, who has been on a one man crusade for several years to tighten gun regulations on Capitol Hill.

What was so disturbing about the virtual meeting was that the freshman Republican Rep from Colorado, Lauren Boebert, in the ZOOM meeting was standing in front of a display of her guns.  Now I don’t mean just a couple of rifles.  I mean, there were three large firearms including two, AR-15’s plus another large firearm, and a hand gun.  All of this was on display as she and her colleagues debated whether to ban lawmakers from bringing guns to committee meetings.

Now, obviously Ms. Boebert is very familiar with her guns.  This freshman lawmaker and gun-rights advocate, also owns a gun-themed restaurant in, of course, Rifle, Colorado.

“If somebody wants to have a shrine to their gun fetish as a Zoom backdrop in their private life, they can do that,” Huffman said. “But this is our hearing room, and at some point we will get past the covid epidemic and we’ll all start showing up in person.  It’s necessary that we lay down these ground rules that whatever your fetishes or feelings are about guns, you’re not going to bring them into our committee room,” he added.

Boebert responded that the Democrats were infringing on her constitutional rights.

“It doesn’t matter how you feel, how you classify it. This is my enumerated right . . . to bear arms,” she said.

A 1967 law banned firearms anywhere in the Capitol building and grounds.  But it gave U.S. Capitol Police the power to make exceptions. Later that year, Capitol Police decided that lawmakers could keep firearms in their personal offices and they can transport unloaded firearms “within the Capitol Grounds.”

Today, there is an ad in The Hill magazine where this freshman female lawmaker vows to carry her Glock around D.C.

There has been debate over whether “within the Capitol Grounds.” means they can bring guns into committee rooms.  To clear up the ambiguity, Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee added an explicit rule forbidding it in at least their committee. The Republicans argued that no other committee has done this and accused Democrats of using the Natural Resources panel politically.

“This rule is deeper than just this committee, and the Democratic majority seeks to restrict our Second Amendment rights on public lands across this nation and to erode those rights,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), the ranking Republican on the committee.

But after the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol, Capitol Police put up metal detectors outside the House and the Senate chambers.  Boebert led a revolt against them after setting off the detector and refusing to allow police to check her bag.

Many GOP lawmakers dodge the metal detectors that were added after the Capitol Riots.  They also refer to them as “atrocities”.

Huffman believes that the way the law is written, a lawmaker could openly carry an AK-47 around the Capitol complex and it would be allowed.  He said he was shocked to see Boebert prominently displaying her guns during the committee hearing.

“It was jaw-dropping for all of us, and I’m sure that was the point,” Huffman said in an interview. “I think what she doesn’t seem to understand is that all of this strident waving around of guns doesn’t make the people around you feel safe about the idea of you being heavily armed in their presence.”

On Twitter, Boebert faced serious criticism for unsafely storing her guns.

“Who says this is storage?” she responded about the pictures of her and her guns behind her in the ZOOM meeting. “These are ready for immediate use,” she said.

I don’t think it will be appropriate to have our nation’s Capitol Grounds looking like a modern day, OK Corral.

Copyright G. Ater 2021