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The House of Representatives did not think “enough was enough” when 19 schoolchildren and two adults were killed with an assault weapon at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, or when almost 100,000 people lost their lives to gunfire in our country over the past two years. But at this hearing, they cast the gun industry and gun owners as victims of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—a take so absurd that it would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous.
ATF doesn’t do nearly enough to crack down on the gun industry. Gun dealers sell mass amounts of semi-automatics to obvious traffickers. Manufacturers allow these practices and willingly supply these dealers, knowing many are corrupt. ATF rarely recommends revoking dealer licenses, and public documents have revealed that in the rare cases when they do, that decision is often overruled.
The industry knows it can supply and profit off the criminal market with almost no chance of punishment. And those practices don’t just supply criminals in the U.S.; they provide the cartels in Mexico, who in turn ship fentanyl here and kill more of our children.
The hearing we attended was a barrage of gun lobby lies aimed at distracting people from real solutions to save children like Joaquin. Subcommittee Chair Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) had the nerve to cite Mexico’s strict gun laws and its high rate of gun crime as “proof” that gun laws don’t work, ignoring the fact that guns sold by U.S. dealers and trafficked over the border help drive Mexico’s violence. When Patricia called him out on his false statement, Rep. Fallon ordered her to be thrown out. After I defended her, I was also removed. Minutes later I was handcuffed on the floor of a hallway in the Capitol, en route to the Capitol Police detention center for a mugshot, fingerprinting, and several hours locked up in a cell.
But I committed no crime. Those that did were the members of Congress who grovel at the feet of the gun lobby, who refuse to hold the gun industry accountable for its shoddy business practices, and who refuse to protect all of us from gun violence.
Monday’s school shooting in Nashville won’t be the last. Innocent people will die while our politicians endorse an ambitious gun industry. The question is whether we should disrupt their behavior or not. I say we do.
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