Rep. Cicilline Explains Fiery ‘Spare Me the Bullshit’ Moment During Debate Over Gun Bill: ‘Refusing to Protect Their Own Constituents’
By Katherine HugginsJun 4th, 2022
Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) explained on Saturday why he got so heated during a committee markup of a gun bill that includes measures to increase the purchase age limit for certain semiautomatic rifles to 21, limit magazine sizes and strengthen existing regulations of bump stocks and ghost guns.
Video widely circulated on social media from the Judiciary Committee meeting showed Cicilline going off on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for saying red flag laws “trample on an individual’s due process and Second Amendment rights.”
“You know who didn’t have due process?” Cicilline said. “You know who didn’t have their constitutional right to life respected? The kids at Parkland, and Sandy Hook, and Uvalde and Buffalo, and the list goes on and on.”
“So spare me the bullshit about constitutional rights,” he added.
The bill was advanced by the committee with no Republican support.
On Saturday, Cicilline joined CNN’s Pamela Brown, who asked about the testy moment — prompting the Rhode Island lawmaker to get worked up again.
Citing that red flag laws require a judicial proceeding and that the individual has the ability to contest if they are found to be a danger to themselves or others to the point that they should not have access to a firearm, Cicilline said it is “a very reasonable restriction.”
“[The Republican lawmakers] were arguing that, no matter how dangerous you are, no matter how mentally ill you might be, no matter how much you’ve expressed an intention to slaughter someone, that you should have unfettered access to a gun, you should be able to go to a gun store and buy any gun you want,” he said. “That’s insanity.”
He went on to say that red flag laws work and “will save lives,” and previously had bipartisan support in the Senate.
“This is supported by over 85% of the American people, and our colleagues wouldn’t even concede that keeping guns out of the hands of people who are dangers either to themselves and others was reasonable,” Cicilline continued. “You know they were talking about constitutional rights and the Second Amendment, they never mentioned the children who have been slaughtered and the innocent people who have been killed who were deprived of all their rights: their right to life, liberty, happiness who had no due process, they were just killed.”
He then reiterated that he thinks “no constitutional right is absolute.”
“Even the First Amendment isn’t. You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” Cicilline told Brown. “So this claim that the Second Amendment is absolute and you can’t have any restrictions is just not true.”
Cicilline added moments later that the Republicans on the committee are “mimicking the arguments of gun lobby and refusing to protect their own constituents by passing comm0n sense gun safety legislation.”
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/rep-cicilline-explains-fiery-spare-me-the-bullshit-moment-during-debate-over-gun-bill-refusing-to-protect-their-own-constituents/ |
