Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The legislative process really looks kind of arcane to most folks who aren’t familiar with it. In theory, lawmakers simply vote on the issues. In reality, though, there’s more to it. One of the things that many forget takes place is the testimony and debate surrounding the bills. In theory, this allows lawmakers to make sure they’re fully informed on what’s in the bill so they know what they’re voting for.
However, what happens when a couple of lawmakers do their level best to ignore the testimony in question?
That’s the question that surrounds a couple of Virginia Democrats who were caught on a hot microphone not just scheming to ignore testimony, but also insulting pro-gun witnesses.
From PJ Media’s report on the video:
In the video below, two Virginia Democrats discuss how to get around the “gun guys” at a recent meeting in Fairfax County.
Liberty Nation sorted through the difficult-to-discern tape and determined that the Democrats were scheming on how to get out of hearing what one dismissed as “gun guys.”
“You gonna stick around for the 25 gun guys?” one lawmaker is heard saying. After a mostly inaudible exchange, he appears to say: “They are… mixed up, little kids.” Then, the other lawmaker says: “Yeah, as long as we, ah, just don’t respond.”
Good to know these two are open to both the process and hearing alternate viewpoints.
In truth, this is nothing new. No one sticks around for the other guys’ witnesses. They always have somewhere else to be because their minds are completely made up from the moment the bill is introduced. The only things that change their mind are deals for other things or their constituents screaming at them.
That’s it.
What’s problematic is the utter disregard they’re illustrating for the pro-gun position. After all, in their mind, we’re all just “mixed up little kids” who don’t actually understand the issue. It doesn’t matter just how much one may have studied the bills in question, how many studies you present showing these policies don’t work, or anything else, they’re just going to dismiss you as “mixed up” when you have a better grasp of the issues than they do.
These are the same people who talk all about how what they want is a debate on guns.
No, they don’t want a debate. That would imply they actually care what people like you or me think on the issue. They don’t. What they really want is for us to sit down, shut up, and let them run our lives because that’s exactly what’s on the table.
The problem for this is that there are a lot of Virginians who aren’t remotely interested in playing along with the anti-gunners’ delusions of adequacy. They’re not going to roll over and play dead and they’re not going to tolerate just being disrespected by their political opponents who also claim they want a debate.
Instead, they’ll call the state’s Democrats on their BS and drive on with defending their God-given rights.
Frankly, if those couple of Democrats don’t get that, maybe they’re the “mixed up little kids.”
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/01/08/dems-ignore-pro-gun-testimony/