IN SUPPORT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PERSONAL PROTECTION ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 29, 2004)
(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of a measure we will consider today in the Congress authored by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder). It is the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act, and there will be much sound and fury throughout the day and perhaps this evening on this measure.
The measure actually overturns local District of Columbia laws that ban the sale and possession of hand guns, ammunition and certain types of semi-automatic weapons to law-abiding citizens in the District of Columbia.
I believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans actually save lives, and there will be arguments and statistics on both sides of that debate. But I rise very briefly to begin the argument, specifically to refute what I believe will be the false federalism argument that many will employ today, to say that the District of Columbia has the right to pass its own gun laws even when, in so doing, they ban and discriminate against the blood-bought right to keep and bear arms that is enshrined in the Constitution.
Let us be clear on this point and this definition of federalism: No State has the right to legislate away the blood-bought constitutional right of every law-abiding American to protect their person, their family and their liberty.