Your goal, our goal I think of the committee would be to create a competitive environment where two or more innovative, creative American-based companies are producing our essential launch systems.

we must have a realistic ability to respond, and our adversaries need to know it.

I will acknowledge that I have been critical of the length of time, but as I have learned more about it, I realize you have a more complicated situation than most of us fully understand.

There is a growing unease that we are seeing, particularly in the latter days of this administration.

The Defense Department is the great Department of the United States Government.

this sends a message to criminals that if you commit a crime with a gun, this administration will not be hard on you, perhaps go easy on you.

Our Constitution will not allow for this kind of unilateral action, and the American people will not stand for it.

I do not believe they did. Did they?

Do you think that this announcement by the President will have a chilling effect on citizens who merely want to exercise their constitutional rights?

But millions of Americans--millions--own guns. I, for one, have sold a gun and taken money to buy another gun, but I am not a gun dealer and so forth.

I am concerned that the President is slowly, slowly chipping away at our Second Amendment rights.

Let us not get involved in constitutional arguments, and let us help our American people be safe and secure in their home, their neighborhood, their school, and their house of worship.

We have a right to defend ourselves. Do we not?

Have you seen any administration in recent years or even in past years in the presidency that would look at part of our constitutional makeup and attack this amendment, the Bill of Rights, or attack this part of the Constitution like this…

He wants to do it by executive order. Is that correct?

Loose talk by this President about sweepingly denying people the right to buy a gun without any adjudicatory process is irresponsible, and actual steps in that direction would be downright tyrannical.

I believe the end game should be that we all uphold the Constitution, all amendments, including the Second Amendment.

Do you believe that rather than saving lives, the President's executive actions could result in more lives lost through the violation of a constitutionally guaranteed right to self-defense?