On the recordJune 28, 2021
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, I would just say this: Number one, I think you would do well to turn off the phone and pay attention to this Special Order while you have the honor of presiding over the floor of the House of Representatives. The words being spoken are important here. I would just share a brief anecdote with you, and it is this: I have spent many nights in combat. And like many of my friends, helmet, night-vision optics, lots of Velcro camo, backpack. I was a bomb technician, so I normally carried 30, 40 pounds of explosives. I had my side arm. I had my carbine. I had a metal detector and a number of other things. I normally had about 10 magazines across the front of my vest. And we were heavy. We were carrying a lot of weight on any given night. And every single night, both myself and my brothers in arms would decide how many more magazines we were going to put into our backpacks, into our kits, because we always felt that the dumbest reason for any of us to die would be for a lack of shooting back. And I think that is something that would, in turn, be one of the dumbest reasons for any law-abiding American to bring about their death, would be because they can't shoot back.
