During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) spoke about three pieces of gun legislation that he has co-sponsored.
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00:00Mr. President, I come to the floor today to continue Republicans fighting, as we are fighting tooth and nail, to protect the rights of American citizens.
00:08And one of those rights, of course, is one that you and I know very well from our home states, the right to keep and bear arms.
00:15The Second Amendment guarantees that every American, every American, has the right to own and use a firearm.
00:21And every day, people across your state of Oklahoma, my state of Wyoming, use that right responsibly.
00:28We also know that for the last four years, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and the Radical Democrats have waged a war against the Second Amendment rights of American citizens.
00:39They tried to ban firearms, tried to tax ammunition to the point where it couldn't be afforded, directed the ATF to harass law-abiding gun owners,
00:50tried to make it impossible for citizens to buy, own, transport, or use a firearm.
00:59So now Republicans are in control in the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the White House.
01:04And we are defending the Second Amendment from those who would try to take it away from us.
01:11Senator Corden of Texas has introduced the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act.
01:17This bold legislation allows qualified citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights in any states that respect concealed carry.
01:27Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas has introduced something called the Short Act.
01:32This legislation stops rogue bureaucrats, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, from harassing lawful gun owners.
01:40It shields citizens from unconstitutional gun registration schemes.
01:46Senator Bill Haggerty of Tennessee has introduced the Protecting Privacy in Purchasing Act.
01:52This legislation is a direct strike against Democrats' alarming overreach on gun purchases.
01:59It will safeguard gun owners from the government's invasive tracking and spying on lawful purchases.
02:07So, look, I'm proud, Mr. Chairman, to be a co-sponsor of all three of these pieces of important pro-freedom legislation.
02:17This fight is one of the most important that we're ever going to conduct.
02:21Democrats across the country are determined to take away the rights of law-abiding American citizens.
02:27They're pushing their anti-gun agenda in the courts.
02:32It's another place this is being fought out.
02:34They are scheming right here in the United States Senate to come after our Second Amendment rights.
02:41Mr. President, when Democrats held the majority, we know what we saw.
02:45They had the audacity to try to ram through an unconstitutional so-called assault weapons ban,
02:51and they tried to do it by unanimous consent, coming here onto the floor and just trying to sneak it through.
02:56Well, I was proud to stand here in this chamber, face them down, and emphatically say no to your unanimous consent.
03:06Now Democrats are in the minority.
03:09Have they changed in terms of their beliefs in the Second Amendment?
03:12No, not at all.
03:13They continue to be obsessed with banning semi-automatic firearms simply because of the way the firearms look.
03:25That's what they're after.
03:26Let me be clear.
03:28Democrats' ban on so-called assault weapons, that's their phrase, is an assault on law-abiding gun owners.
03:34Assault against all of us.
03:36Every single page of their bill adds a new restriction, a new burden, and a new attack on citizens who follow the law.
03:44It dictates what you can buy and what you can't buy, bans more than 205 popular rifles, shotguns, and pistols, and it bans them by name.
03:55That's how extreme they have gotten.
03:57They want to trample on the rights of law-abiding citizens.
04:04And it's a fascinating thing, Mr. President, because instead of trampling on the rights of law-abiding citizens,
04:10they're out there trying to protect illegal immigrants' rights, saying they have rights.
04:18They don't.
04:19That is the contrast of our party fighting for the rights of citizens, their party fighting for the rights of illegal immigrants.
04:33Democrats are the party of defunding the police, the party of disarming the American people.
04:40Their actions have made our streets more dangerous, not safer.
04:44We're for safety and prosperity.
04:47They seem to be not for either.
04:48So I oppose any of these policies, Mr. President, that threaten the Second Amendment rights of the people of Wyoming,
04:54the people of your state of Oklahoma, and people from states all across the country.
05:01Thank you, Mr. President.
05:02I yield the floor.
05:04Suggest the absence of a quorum.