At today's gun hearings, representative Katie Porter got into it with a witness
that had been brought in by the Heritage Foundation.
And the witness did not like it when Katie Porter pointed out how that witness had
previously misrepresented a proposed assault weapons ban.
You'll see that in this clip.
>> Miss Porter, in 2019 you testified on Representative Cisa Leni's bill,
the assault weapons ban before Congress.
At the 2019 hearing, Representative Jim Jordan asked you if law abiding
people will be less safe to protect themselves if that bill was passed.
Do you remember your response?
>> I have a general idea of what I would have said under that circumstance,
but no, I don't remember my specific words.
>> You said and I quote, I think worse than that sir,
you will see millions of otherwise law abiding citizens become felons overnight.
>> Yes. >> For nothing more than having scary
looking features on firearms.
I was quite surprised by your answer.
You read the bill before you came to Congress to testify against it.
Yes.
>> If we're referring to the ban on assault weapons, correct.
>> Correct?
>> Yes. >> So, you knew that the bill would allow
any gun owner to maintain possession of any semi automatic assault
weapon that was lawfully possessed before the bill became law?
>> No. So, that is the case under that bill.
The problem is any time [CROSSTALK] that is transferred to anybody else that time
becomes an issue.
>> Madam would you please respect the witness at the time belongs to me.
>> Okay, so we're going to have more of the video.
There's a lot of that back and forth.
The debate in the end though is very simple.
So, let's break it down.
What she said, what was quoted directly there by Katie Porter, was that,
simply because the guns look scary or whatever and in her extended testimony,
which I watched, she kept going to like this is just about people who don't
understand what a pistol grip is or a barrel shroud or whatever,
which is of course not at the core of concerns about assault weapons,
that they will become felons because their guns have those things.
And that is simply not true in the bill, as she admits you do not become
a felon because you own a gun that was legal when you purchased it.
The bill 100% makes allowances for that.
You can keep the gun that you have.
She understands that, the issue is that she wasn't brought there by
the Heritage Foundation either now or in past years to accurately describe or
analyze the constitution or pieces of legislation.
She's there to terrify gun owners and to try to derail gun reform.
And so she got really snippy when Katie Porter pointed that out very succinctly.
>> Yeah.
So, there's a couple of different issues here that I really like and
that it's important for you to know about politics.
So, first of all, when Katie Porter reclaims the time,
there's a reason for that.
They have about a five minute limit where they get to ask the witnesses questions.
And by the way, if the witness doesn't get to fully answer a question in the way that
they want, they can have the next person, because they alternate back and forth.
A republican can then say, hey, you can finish your answer.
Why did you think that the bill did X, Y or Z?
So, it's not like she doesn't get any opportunity at all.
The reason why people like Katy porter, quote reclaim their time is because
otherwise witnesses filibuster, you ask them one question and
they take up the whole five minutes with a rambling answer so
that you don't get your 2nd 3rd or fourth question.
So, that's why Katie Porter, always reclaims her time so
she can keep going forward.
But I thought what was the most interesting out of all of this is,
whenever democrats go to testify in front of congress,
they are told by their consultants and clowns do not ever challenge republicans.
No matter what insane thing they tell you.
Hey, isn't it true that the aliens kidnapped your body and
now you're a lizard person.
You have to be respectful and say, well senator not exactly right and
be super polite and genteel.
Do the republicans look like they're doing the same thing?
The whole time even from the beginning, even before Katie Porter, challenged her,
she's like, yeah, I don't think so Congresswoman, whatever right.
And what does that do creates an uneven playing field, where the republicans
can say whatever the hell they want, and the democrats are always like, damn it.
And that's why we love Katie Porter.
Because she actually challenges, >> Yeah.
>> Whether it's corporate executives or in this case someone who's paid to make sure
that there's no gun control, so that there's more massacres of our Children.
She is tough in challenging them and we love that.
But the minute it happens, like, whoa is this allowed?
Is a democrat allowed to fight back?
What does she mean reclaim her time?
So, then they make a mess of it.
>> Exactly. And you know what, look,
there's a huge back and forth where republicans started jumping and say,
let her answer the question and Katie Porter trying to move on to another point
and the women's trying to filibuster again, we're gonna skip that second video.
Actually, let's get ready for the third one.
Because at the end of the day, the debate is super simple.
She is going to try to conflate two things, how she described what the bill
does, implying that you would be a felon because you had already purchased a gun.
That's clearly what she said.
And then she tries to explain, no, what I meant was that if you later tried to sell
it, you'd become a felon, how is that overnight?
How is that millions of people overnight?
We've the bill is very clear, you cannot transfer or
otherwise purchase one of these guns.
That's clear. Everybody understands that.
And so she's trying to conflate things to terrify people about the ownership rather
than about the core, which is the issue, which is the transferring.
She understands that she knows what she's there to do.
But also, she does have to deal with this new context where republicans
are feeling more heat about not caring about slaughtered kids.
That is clear.
They've gotten so defensive recently.
And so I went and I looked up more of what this particular woman,
Amy swear had to say about this issue.
And she like some republicans recently, wants to reassure you that they're not
opposing gun control, not because they don't care.
In fact, they care just as much as anyone else.
>> Everybody with a soul has it shattered over acts like this.
And we have seen it shattered every single time from Columbine to Parkland to
move all day.
We did not somehow, this didn't get easier for us.
We did not grow numb somewhere along the way to the reality of this.
It's not as though our family members don't also teach fourth graders or
we don't also send our kids to school.
It's not as though we don't also shop in grocery stores or
go to country music festivals or work in hospitals.
As though we don't also feel the tremendous, horrible weight of
these tragedies somewhere deep inside of our souls because we do.
Now, we oppose these policies precisely because the lives of these victims matter.
>> A flat out lie.
They opposed these policies because they're there to represent
conservative electoral interests and the gun manufacturers.
That's it.
She can say, we didn't grow numb and maybe they didn't.
Maybe they've been numb for a really long time.
Maybe they started out numb.
Maybe they never cared.
All I know is that she is there and you can watch many minutes of her testimony.
She's there to do what all the republicans have done after this shooting and
after all the past ones.
She says gun control wouldn't matter.
She went on to talk about, how we need to just earlier intervention,
even though she doesn't mention red flag loss.
She literally goes off about how we need more locked doors and everything,
never explaining why the guy wouldn't just shoot out
the windows on the first floor rooms, with the assault weapon she has.
She doesn't like being presented as someone who doesn't care about killed
kids, but she cannot dispute the indisputable fact that she wants the next
school shooter to be just as well armed as the last one.
She can pretend to cry on tape about it.
But that's what she's there to do.
Her career is designed to make sure that the next shooter is
as well armed as any soldier, any military around the world has.
>> Yeah, let me double down on what John is saying.
That's army swear and I think she's a liar.
I don't think she believes a word she just said.
All that fake modeling emotion.
You think we don't have kids too?
Well, then what are you doing about it?
What are you doing about it?
We know for a fact, that the more guns there are in a country,
the more gun homicides there are and the more mass shootings, there are.
America leads the world in mass shootings by an order of magnitude among developed
nations.
We have 73% of all of the mass shootings.
All the other countries combined only have 27%.
All of them combined only have a quarter.
We have three quarters.
Why? Because they have gun control.
We don't have gun control.
There's nothing we can do about Massachusetts really breaks my heart.
You do, ching ching, you got the money, right?
If you get the money from the gun lobby, And that pays my checks.
Yes.
I care so much.
I think you're a goddamn liar, Amy swear.
Go ahead, raise your eyebrow again.
I don't care.
It's people like you, that are getting our kids killed and massacred.
So, don't give me your total bears,
fake fake emotions there about how you care about the kids.
We know for a fact it's the guns.
It's definitely the guns.
And you go, yeah, who cares?
Give it to him anyway.
Second Amendment rights wink wink.
It's really about the money, isn't it?
Isn't it about the gun manufacturers that makes millions and
millions and millions of dollars from those weapons.
Okay, Second Amendment.
My ask was the shooter in your body a part of a well regulated militia?
Was he?
Was he army?
Was he a part of a well regulated militia?
Because then he would have Second Amendment Rights.
Show me which well regulated militia, he was a part of.
That's inconvenient for you.
Because then well we couldn't sell more weapons and then have a think tank like
Heritage Foundation, who gets funded by giant corporations to help them make more
money come out there and think they're just big thinkers in the think tank.
And they thought and thought and they saw all the numbers about how the guns lead to
more dead kids and they thought we don't mind.
>> Yeah. It's all bears.
They don't care any more now than they did before when they're dispatching.
Like literally the guy who was injured in a mass shooting,
Steve Scalise to say, the exact same argument that, Marjorie Greene,
made a few days ago or maybe it was Lauren Bow, but I sometimes can't
tell them apart that we didn't regulate guns after 911, that that's accurate.
Yep, there was nothing that changed after 911.
We didn't do anything in terms of security, and
in fact right now, I can go to Walmart and buy a747 and
just take off from the street outside of my house, right?
And there's no regulations and there's no training required.
Louie Gohmert, going up and
saying that this is all due to the fact that there's not prayer in school.
Just like disgustingly ignoring the fact that,
all of those kids were praying right before they were killed.
We're supposed to believe that they care.
We're supposed to believe that, she cares about the law.
The the idea even the Supreme Court interpreting the Second Amendment,
that there's some sort of personal right to ownership of firearms.
That that was invented like a decade and a half ago,
hundreds of years into the history of this nation.
That is not at all how the Supreme Court had ever interpreted the Second Amendment
before that.
But she's a legal scholar.
She supposedly would understand that.
It would understand, why like slightly more than a dozen words in
the Second Amendment, where exactly does it designate why you should
be able to buy an AR-15 but not a fully automatic AK-47?
Which particular word in the Second Amendment lets you have the AR-15,
but not a Bazooka?
An AR-15, but not a Tank.
Where in the Second Amendment is that?
Because you want to imply that the status quote isn't just a negotiation
that we have had as a society.
It's something objective, something philosophical,
something legal baked into those few words.
It's not there.
We get to decide as a responsible society or
at least aspirational a responsible society.
Since we clearly are not one, where exactly we draw the line.
You're going to try to draw the line where it financially benefits gun manufacturers.
We're gonna choose to draw the line where it protects kids or
at least we're gonna fight to try to draw the line there.
>> Yeah.
People make sure to tell me all the time.
You have to respect republicans.
No, I don't.
Where is that written down?
Show me the amendment where it says, I have to respect republicans.
No, I think they're monsters.
I don't think they care at all about all those dead kids.
And you got free speech rights.
So, you go and give your bears speech in the house.
About, My God, I care so much.
Check, check, check.
I got the check.
Yes.
Right.
And I get to give my speech and say, you know what people like Army swear and
it's just not heard like the Louie Gohmert, it's the Mitch McConnells,
who's the number one problem in America when it comes to gun control.
All those republicans,
every single one of them drenched in money from the gun lobby and drenched in blood.
You should shame them.
Never do anything physical.
That's what the monsters on the right wing do.
Okay.
But you see army, So hey, you make money from guns?
You're disgusting.
No, you have to be polite.
Why do I have to be polite to the elites?
Are they polite to us?
Were they polite to the kids in your body?
No, no, no, never anything physical.
But we do not have to be polite to people who make money of the deaths of our kids.
Thank God there's no landmine industry.
Because if there was, they would go purchase the Heritage Foundation and
republican politicians, they would say, no, we have a great idea for
the mass shootings at the schools.
We just plant landmines in the schoolyard.
And then you think they won't do it?
[CROSSTALK] >> You think-
>> Yeah.
Yeah.
No, they'll do it.
They'll do anything for money.
That's who republicans are.
They're monsters.
>> Yeah. No amount of dead kids will get them to
feel shame and feel like,
maybe I shouldn't take all the bribes I got from the gun lobby.
Maybe I should actually care about other people's kids.
It won't happen.
Scalise himself was shot and he came back out begging for money from the gun lobby.
That's how disgusting these guys are.