Our first witness will be Representative Thomas Massey. Thomas Massey represents Kentucky's fourth congressional district. He serves as the chairman of the House Second Amendment Caucus and sits on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. Congressman Massey, you are recognized for your opening statement. Thank you Chairman Paul and Ranking Member Peters for allowing me to speak to the upper chamber here today. I'm very passionate about this issue of the right to keep and bear arms. I got my first firearm when I was 12 years old from my father and with that I learned the responsibility and the rights that come with owning a firearm. I formed the Second Amendment Caucus about a decade ago and have been using that venue to bring in people like Alan Gura, the lawyer who was responsible for arguing the Heller case and also the McDonald case and he won both of those cases in the Supreme Court. In fact, we've had Dick Heller in our caucus and we've had some of those brave men who have stopped mass public shootings and it's been a great venue for teaching myself and others more about the Second Amendment. In keeping with the committee's request, I prepared a speech but I'll only deliver part of that and then with your indulgence I'd like to talk about some legislation that I think is important that's sitting in the House. The simple and direct language of our Constitution is clear, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. There are no qualifiers on who may keep arms, what types of arms they may keep or for what purposes and it certainly doesn't say that the right to bear arms is about trivial matters like deer hunting or skeet shooting. The Second Amendment exists for one clear reason: defense. For the defense of one's home, one's family and one's community. For the defense of liberty and safety, not only from a lone assailant but from the whole of tyrannical government. That is why we have the Second Amendment. Our founders understood the greatest risks to liberty are not always found outside a nation's borders, even though we go looking for fights abroad sometimes too frequently. But often times from within, when a corrupt and dangerous few grow too ambitious in attempt to subjugate the masses. And when such tyranny arises, snakes prefer the path of least resistance. They prefer a population that is vulnerable and as George Mason reminded us in 1788, to disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. History is riddled with oppressive states that stripped and abused their own people to keep riches for the assaulting cabal. And in every instance, before those snakes bit, they first took away the guns. Whether it was Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, or Chavez. Gun confiscations and restrictions came first.

Then the infringement of all the other liberties. And in many cases, millions were killed by their own governments. It's not by the grace that America has averted similar atrocities. It's because of our Constitution's design. As Madison wrote in Federalist 46, "The advantage of being armed with the Americans possessed over the people of almost every other nation forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, a barrier against tyranny and oppression by a ruling class." To this point, "I think it's incumbent upon us to advance legislation that will protect the Second Amendment here." We've sworn an oath to the Constitution to protect it from enemies from within and abroad. Four pieces of legislation that I've sponsored in the House that I want to talk about today. One is to repeal the Gun-Free School Zone Act. Ninety-four percent of mass public shootings happen in gun-free zones. And so we shouldn't be advertising as the default that our children are sitting ducks that are unprotected. In the states and school zones where they have allowed the carrying of firearms, there have been no such catastrophes. The other bill that's easy to explain is a bill to allow 18 to 21-year-olds to buy handguns from a federally licensed dealer. I think it's somewhat ridiculous that you can be conscripted to serve your country in a war. You can be 18, 19, or 20 and forced into service to fight for your country, but you can't defend your own family with a handgun that you bought at a licensed dealer. So we should repeal this federal restriction. A piece of legislation that's coming up in the House next month, which I think is very important, is to report some of the data that we collect in the NICS database.

When you go to buy a gun, you fill out a form 4473. It's that gold form. And they collect data on there that they never report. And what we've discovered through my friend John Lott, who's an economist and a statistician and an author, is that there's inherent racism in the NICS background check system. Because it's sloppy and they check only phonetically similar names, when you go to purchase a gun, you can be deprived of purchasing that gun. And the appeals process can get messy to prove you're not the same person that they think is the person who's prohibited. It turns out, if you're a black American or Hispanic, you're far more likely to share a name phonetically with somebody who's a prohibited person who's been convicted of a crime of a year that has a punishment of a year or more. In fact, you're probably twice as likely, if you're Hispanic, to be falsely denied the purchase of a handgun and three times as likely, if you're black, to be denied the purchase of a gun at a dealership, at a dealer. So this bill that's coming up in the House would just -- and by the way, it's passed unanimously in our Judiciary Committee. Democrats and Republicans have both voted for it. Simply requires the DOJ to publish that data, not of individuals, but in the aggregate of the denials by sex and also by race or ethnicity. Finally, the bill that I'm most excited about is the National Constitutional Carry Act. And Senator Lee has that here in the Senate now, and some of you are sponsors of that. I thank you. Several years ago, there was legislation advanced to force reciprocity among the states for concealed carry permits. Now, that made sense at the time because in most of the states you needed a permit to carry a firearm. But 29 states now recognize that the right to keep and bear arms should not require permission from your government to bear those arms. And so they have permitless carry. I've advanced a bill, the National Constitutional Carry Act, that would extend that to all 50 states and the territories. Now, you may ask, well, does that violate the 10th Amendment?

Are you infringing on state rights? Well, thanks to the McDonald case in 2010, which came two years after the Heller case. See, Heller was decided in D.C., so it didn't impinge on the states. But the McDonald case versus Chicago incorporated the Second Amendment to the states. So the states are constrained by the Second Amendment. So, no, it does not violate the 10th Amendment to tell the states that you must follow the right to keep and bear arms in the Second Amendment. So I'd love to see some action on that here in the Senate. With that, I'll return to my prepared remarks and close. When we look to our Constitution, remember it's a document by our people for the purpose of constraining our government, not the other way around. The Second Amendment is the ultimate check on our government. Any attack on those core tenants, whether it's the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, or the Fourth Amendment, or any other provision of our Constitution, is dangerous and wrong. And one does not need to look too far back in history to find examples of why. And I'll close with these words from Patrick Henry. "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches the jewel. The great object is that every man be armed."

Thank you very much for allowing me to testify today.