Photo: Zach Lautenschlager, Vice President of the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), and Erich Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America (GOA), meet with Rep. Thomas Massie on Capitol Hill.
By: Teresa Mull
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told Gunpowder Magazine in an interview on Capitol Hill today he has filed paperwork to re-form the Second Amendment Caucus.
“It’s going to be more important now than ever to have a Second Amendment Caucus in Congress,” Massie told GPM.
Massie also met this morning with Zach Lautenschlager, Vice President of the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR), and Erich Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America (GOA) to discuss the upcoming Congressional session.
Massie listed universal background checks, red flag gun confiscation laws, and a ban on 3-D printing firearms among the list of likely proposals Democrats will be pushing for this year at the federal level.
“The reason I reconstituted the Second Amendment Caucus is to help inform Congress members so that their news source isn’t Twitter or MSNBC – we’re not repeating their talking points,” Massie said. “Instead of forming a Caucus where Congressmen sit around and try to convince each other they’re the smartest person in the room, I bring in people from outside, like Allan Gura, who won the Heller [v. District of Columbia] decision and McDonald [v. City of Chicago] decision in front of the Supreme Court, and John Lott, who has researched this and written books on these statistics.”
Universal Background Checks
Massie called universal background checks the opposite of effective and “a solution to a problem we don’t have.
“It’s already a crime to sell a firearm to somebody who is not legally allowed to own a firearm,” he said. “Whether you go through a background check or not, that is already a crime.”
Massie called the background check database “faulty” and “racially biased,” because minorities are more likely to share a surname with someone else who may have a criminal record.
Red Flag Gun Confiscation Laws
Massie said red flag gun confiscation laws violate the Fourth Amendment.
“If you take somebody’s God-given rights because you think they might someday commit a crime, now we’re in the realm of dystopian science fiction movies,” Massie said. “Whether you’re an ardent defender of the Second Amendment or not, you should be concerned about the implications of the Fourth Amendment and due process. It’s a foundation of our country.”
What Democrats Want
Massie said that ultimately, Democrats don’t care about keeping people safe.
“For Democrats, this issue is about emotion,” Massie said. “They’re appealing to emotion and not reason. If they were appealing to reason, they would know ways to keep people safe and that, to quote a book, ‘more guns equal less crime.’ But also for the Democrats, it’s about paying back their donors. Soros and Bloomberg are going to want what they paid for, and what they paid for is disarming our society.”
Gunpowder Magazine editor Teresa Mull chats with Rep. Massie in his office on Capitol Hill.
The Second Second Amendment Caucus
Massie is no stranger to fighting for Second Amendment rights. He led the Second Amendment Caucus during its launch in 2016.
“The recent election results present us with a new opportunity to advance pro-gun legislation and reverse the erosion of the Second Amendment that’s occurred over the last few decades,” Massie said at the time. “I look forward to working with the new President and this determined group of conservatives to promote a pro-gun agenda.”
Crime prevention researcher John Lott noted at the time of the Caucus’ initial iteration, “With so many laws disarming the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society and others who face real threats to their and their family’s safety, it is reassuring to know that the Second Amendment Caucus is there to ensure people’s safety.”
Teresa Mull is editor of Gunpowder Magazine. Contact her at [email protected].