John Culberson: “I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania. I do, as he knows, support this amendment because it has become necessary to…”

“I thank my good friend from Pennsylvania. I do, as he knows, support this amendment because it has become necessary to put restrictions like this on the bill because the ATF, under President Obama, did attempt to prohibit 223 ammunition, which is used in one of the most popular and widely available sporting rifles in the United States. The new Director of the ATF, Tom Brandon, I want to thank him and professional law enforcement officers at the ATF. They came in to see me when I was the brand-new chairman of the subcommittee earlier this year. We had a very good visit. We looked at the statute, and Director Brandon and his chief counsel understood that the guidelines that they had created went beyond the statute. They recognized that they were going to have a very difficult budget year if they persisted in this effort to interfere with American's lawful, constitutional Second Amendment rights. I was very grateful that Director Brandon chose to drop their attempted prohibition on 223 ammunition after our meeting and in response to the 80,000 letters and all the requests from Members of Congress. The ATF did the right thing here by dropping their attempt to ban ammunition. Mr. Massie's amendment is necessary because I think it is important to make it clear that we don't want the Obama administration coming back and attempting to ban ammunition again. I remember, as a student of American history, that General Gage, in Boston, didn't go after the weapons first.…”