Political Quotes

“my Democrat colleagues have challenged why the deregulation of silencers is in this bill and why are we removing the $200 tax. Under the law, they are firearms and therefore are protected by another law enacted in 1791 called the Second Amendment of our beloved Constitution. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and neither shall it be taxed. Chief Justice John Marshall in 1819 declared that ``the power to tax includes the power to destroy.'' If you can tax it, then you can destroy it. Mr. Speaker, you can raise the tax so high that almost no one can afford it, and then you really don't have a right at all. However, the Second Amendment is an unalienable constitutional right, God-given, that governments are required to protect, not to tax. The Supreme Court in the Heller decision of 2008 declared the Second Amendment to be an individual constitutional right further protecting it from taxation, just like the right to speak and the right to vote. This bill simply restores that right from over 90 years of draconian tax. My Democratic colleagues have asked: How did this get in the bill? What was the deal? Who asked for it? There was no deal. I believe the Speaker with the purest of motives simply wanted to restore a constitutional right. Who asked? It was me. I asked.”