American Crossfire 25 – Bump Stocks Again?

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Welcome to American Crossfire with Ryan and Alt where faith firearms and freedom collide. As always, thank you to the firearms radio network for having us. And tonight we'll dive into a Senate Judiciary Committee about bump stocks and conversion devices and how crazy all of them are. We're also going to look at the cabinet picks that we have so far for Trump.

As always, thank you for being here and go check out our affiliate links in the link below, subscribe and like to the channel, and we shall get started. How are you this week? Pretty good. Can't complain. Do you want to beat Tennessee? So happy about that. That's always a good thing. Yeah, because when we left, I was kind of concerned.

Uh, I'm not gonna lie. Um, will we after halftime? I was, I was very pleased after halftime. So leave it the Georgia to give you a little scare.

What are you looking for? I don't know, but the monitor that I have over here, it's actually a TV. It's sitting on the desk with us, but it looks off like it's high on this end. And so if I touch it, it kind of rotates. And so I think something might be under it. And I think it might be more than just the

There's a whole under there that you run cables through. So I'm assuming that's what it is. I don't know, but I was slightly concerned that it was about to fall off the desk and that would make a great show. Well, it's also connected to this computer. So it would just everything. We would just be we'd be done. But but that's all folks. That's right. Just we're done YouTube live on the phone. Maybe better quality. I don't know.

Uh, sound probably wouldn't be any better, but the, the, the video quality probably would be there. Um, I see that we have two people here. Comment in the, in the chat chat. Yeah. The comment in the comments and say that you're here and say that you're dead. Yeah. Cause my wife never says anything and his wife never says anything. So we don't know who's here. Just turns it on the phone, puts the phone down. I'm hoping people will start like sharing the show and people will start coming in.

Yeah, no, I try to text people, but you know. So first off, let's go on and get into the Judiciary Committee. We are going to react to it. So I have it seen. So Dalton hasn't seen it. I have seen it just to see if it was worth doing the whole thing or if I was going to cut snippets out of it.

Um, my plan is is to cut this up and probably put it up as a video because it's an hour video. We'll probably cut about 10 minutes out of it or something and then we'll hit Trump's nominations real quick at the end. Um, because there's just a few that I want to bring up that I think is, is he going to be awesome? I won't Brandon Herrera. Yeah, Brandon Herrera is not on the list yet, but they're trying really hard. Um,

Didn't there like a petition? I was looking. I think that there is something out there that you can, I don't know if RFK put it up or Elon put it up, but you're supposed to be able to go and be like, Hey, this person would be good for this cabinet position. And I know he did a video about it too. Yeah. And so, um,

Like I said, we're going to get started with this. Let me see. Let's see what I think. That'll work. Don't you think that'll work? All right, so. This is the synergy judiciary committee and they are holding a bump stock and other conversion device.

Hearing that just it boggles my mind at this point Dalton has not seen this I have seen it to check and see what is Worth watching or not. Here's the deal. This was done on Wednesday when the Republican Senate held their secret ballot for Senate majority leader so he will the

The chair of this committee will say that and that's the reason that there's not many people here. I was about to say there's only one dude. Yeah, they come in and out. They'll come in and out. How are they supposed to hear it if they're not there to hear it? So Congress has letters. You remember we talked about that so they have they have writings and say this guy over here. Anyway, we're going to get started with this because I want to run through it really quick.

and hope that it works out well. Like I said, there'll be a couple of joints at the beginning because we don't need to listen to all the stupidity. So here we go. For the most part to join us, they've given me permission to proceed. We always try to wait until there's bipartisan presence, but today it will be extremely difficult. And we certainly want to be cooperative with their own undertaking.

I'll make an opening statement, introduce the witnesses and have them each make an opening statement and then proceed to questions. This is our 14th gun violence prevention hearing in the last four years. Why? Not a lot. I didn't think so. I mean, I know people have been shot and killed over the weekend, not just in Chicago.

But mostly in Chicago. States. And those who believe that the gun violence is only a product of blue states and blue cities and blue states. Gun violence is across this. I want to pause there because what Dalton just said is very true. There is no blue states. It's all the blue cities. There are only blue cities. When you look at even like this election that we just went through 2024, there is no blue states.

Almost every state is more than 50 percent land management land coverage red It just it is and so you have the biggest issues in the blue cities Nation in every political environment that you can imagine and we should view it as an American problem not as any problem for any particular party

I hope to be able to work with the new incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley. He and I are deadly conversion devices that are one of the subjects of our hearing. We are exactly the spread of deadly conversion devices that are increasing the lethality of gun violence in America.

On October the 1st, 2017, a gunman opened fire in a crowd of concert-goers in Las Vegas, killing 58, wounding over 400, traumatizing thousands. The extent of the carnage was made possible by a conversion device known as a bump stock. And the aftermath Republicans and Democrats agreed that we needed to act swiftly to restrict access to bump stocks.

Is he asking that he said that right? No, he's asking about the videos from that time. And I'm going to go in and skip it because we've all seen it. Well, let's not. I'm going to listen to the first one because I don't think that this right here is bump fire.

It's such an incredible lineup. All right, so if anybody has ever watched any videos with bump fire, even the best people with bump fire, it is not that consistent. Now, he had like a bump bump at the first one, and then it was a full cycle. Now, if you get really good with a bump stock, you may be able to pull that off once. It's very difficult for me to believe that that's a bump stock.

Well, I mean, I've watched her listen to a bunch of people talk about it. You know, it sounds like an M240 Bravo. Yeah, the saw and listening to the Ray of Fire own a AR with a bump stock and then listening to that.

It doesn't sound consistent. No, not at all. And so he goes into how many they've gotten off the streets, but he's not talking about month stocks here. He went through this entire situation talking about conversion devices, which is the main topic of this hearing, but they keep bringing up but stocks like it's the same thing. So here we go.

quote, we will ban all devices and he bumps to Trump, directed the Department of Justice. And this is what people forget, even though I voted for Trump last time, this time, voted for him the first time, Trump brought us more gun control than most presidents in a while. And he said, quote, we will ban all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns in the court.

Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, saying that I quote, this proposed rule is a critical step in our effort to reduce the threat of gun violence that's in keeping with the Constitution and laws passed by Congress. Might have been a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment. I'm sorry, all gun laws aren't arrangements. But earlier this year, the Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration's regulation in a six to three decision.

Maybe because it was unconstitutional concluded wrongly in my view that the Trump administration could not define bump stocks as machine guns under the National Firearm Act. Congress should respond to this court decision. Now, this will come up way at the end of the, but what he just said, they said the Supreme Court said that ATF could not classify them as machine guns.

that he would have to go back to Congress and Congress would have to decide, which is where it should be if a law is going to be made. That's what the Supreme Court did. They stopped the ATF from legislating from a department. They can't make laws. That's what people don't understand. They're not allowed to make laws. Asking legislation making it clear, the National Firearms Act covers pump stocks.

But Senate Republicans have objected to the legislation, such as the bump act. No one seems to know this, but Amazon actually has a 50 million. I hate ads, and I don't pay for premium. In the sale and possession of these deadly devices. Additionally, we will hear from witnesses today about particularly dangerous device known as the Glock Switch, because it can easily convert or switch a Glock pistol from a semi-automatic handgun into an automatic machine gun.

which is completely true, but technically a submachine gun. But technically that is completely true and Glock switches are illegal. Glock switches which are banned under federal law are cheap, often costing less than $20 and they've been increasingly common in our country. Yeah. So if we were to watch the other part of the video, which I cut out, it talks about that you can find them between 50 and $200.

Now, there is some people on our side of the aisle, or, you know, content creators and stuff like that. They have said that it seems like the federal government set up a sting operation and put all these things on like Timu or Wish or something like that, and then raided a lot of houses after they bought them, which sounds like entrapment to me, but we won't go there. They do the same thing with drugs, I guess.

agents recovered over 5,400 guns with conversion devices at crime scenes between 2017 and 2020. We're going to move on to a five hundred and seven of this point. Witnesses. This point, I want to introduce the witnesses before us. Give them an opportunity to speak after this one in. Majority witnesses. First, it's Jim's Ludwig.

And the only reason I'm stopping here and letting you listen to all this so that you know their credentials, where they're from, why they are in this specific situation. I'll put pronounced it correctly. Is that right? Close? Thank you. Close enough. The Edwin A. and Betty L. Bergman Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and Director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

He's also the co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research Working Group on the economic subscribe. So also join me, Esther Sanchez. So he looks at how crime interferes with economy, essentially.

So he looks at numbers and if crime goes up, he looks at what it does to the economy. So he's an economist that focuses on crime because he lives in the most dangerous city in the world. Sanchez Gomez is the litigation director at Giffords Law Center, where she also leads the Centers to Make us Brief program. We also welcome Laura O'Donnell. Thank you for being here, Laura.

She's the former officer with the Chicago Police Department, where she worked for over 24 years, retiring as a Sergeant in 2021. She managed 22 real-time crime centers across Chicago, received the Superintendent's Award of Merit for your service. She is also coincidentally a survivor of the 2017 mass shooting at Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas.

The two minority witnesses are Zach Smith. Thank you for being here. Senior legal fellow and manager of the Supreme Court and appellate advocacy program for the Edwin Mies Center for Legal and Judicial Studies of the Heritage Foundation. And Ryan Klechner, former special operations sniper team leader with the US Army's first Ranger Battalion.

Also an attorney who represents federal firearm licensees and helps them to stay compliant with federal laws and regulations.

Uh, gun owners of America have cut it up and put it out there. It's it was pretty good. Um, Ryan Kleckner will actually had two podcasts on the firearm radio network and he's written the, um, long range shooters handbook. Yeah. Is that correct? And, um, he, I like the way that he explains things and you'll see that in this, in this video. Well, thank all our witnesses and ask them to please rise for the administration of the oath.

I swear the testimony about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth that I'm so happy got. Thank you. Let the record reflect that all of the witness thank goodness answered in the affirmative so that we can go forward. He's got jokes with Mr. Ludwig. Morning. Thanks so much for having me. I'm here to talk about a particularly troubling trend that we're seeing in the data, which reflects a particularly troubling trend that we're seeing on the streets of America.

In the past several years, we're seeing a rise all across the country in the so-called shooting fatality rate defined as the fraction of gunshot victims that wind up dying as a result of their wounds. My hometown, Chicago, the fraction of shootings that resulted in the victim's death is increased by 6 percentage points. That's about 50% since 2010.

Research by Janet Loretson in Theodore Lenz shows something similar is happening all across the United States. That's to say, this isn't a problem that seems to be unique to Chicago. It's not unique to other big cities. It's not unique to suburbs, rural areas, red states or blue states. It seems to be a problem everywhere. When we look at the data to see why this is happening, the explanation that's best supported

seems to be a large increase in the number of rounds fired per shooting. He keeps just talking about numbers. If you want to watch it, go watch it. We're going to skip him. So basically what he's saying is is the number of shootings or the number of people that die in shootings go up is going up because the lethality of these problems

So his, his numbers are if the, as shootings are going up, there's also a higher percentage chance of people dying in those shootings, which is probably true. It, it just is people are getting better at doing what criminal activity, um, Glock switches. If you do it into a crowd, you're more likely to get hits, I guess, uh, or actually less likely to get hits on target. Um, unless if you're just spraying and praying,

But at the same time, those are already illegal. You'll see that. And the only two people that keep saying that are the two minority witnesses, Ryan Klechner, and I can't remember his name from the Heritage Foundation. So here comes the guy from the Heritage Foundation.

and distinguished members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Zach Smith, and I currently serve as a senior legal fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Before joining Heritage, I serve for several years as an Assistant United States Attorney, worked in private practice, and clerked for the honorable M&R Cox on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.

Fundamentally, today's hearing is focused on the wrong solution aimed at the wrong problem. Contrary to the title of today's hearing, there is not a gun violence epidemic in our country but there is a violent crime epidemic.

Exactly. Fortunately, too many elected leaders are refusing to take the simple yet necessary steps needed to combat this crime epidemic, namely funding the police and prosecuting criminals. That's the problem. Why are elected leaders reluctant to take these common sense steps? Unfortunately, too many have bought into the twin myths that our criminal justice system is system of the racist, which it's not, and that we have a mass incarceration problem or that we lock up too many people in our country. We don't.

But many have called for policy choices to be made based on these faulty assumptions. For example, the Brennan Center for Justice has called for the prison population to be reduced by 39%. The ACLU has called for a 50% reduction. How do you do that? And when academic... You just allow them out and you just say it's okay.

even proposed policies that would result in an 85% drop in the number of people behind bars. These proposals are astounding because most people behind bars today are serving time in prison for committing violent crimes.

As I've explained elsewhere, the vast majority of people in prison today are serving time in state prisons and the vast majority of state prisoners are there for committing crimes such as murder, manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, or other crimes, including gun-related crimes.

According to 2022 statistics, those convicted of violent crimes make up 62.9% of all state prisoners. So reducing the prison population by 50% or more necessarily means not locking up or releasing from prison early, clearly violent criminals.

We hear every day about them releasing criminals that have lengthy histories. We hear every day about juveniles that if they're two days away from 18, the court still saying, well, they're juveniles, so they get probation. This is the problem in the country. We're locking up, one, we're locking up the wrong people, but that's not a discussion for this video, but we are not keeping people that do violent crimes locked up.

We also know that repeat offending is a fact of life with criminals with many offenders going on to reoffend again after leaving prison. And we know that aside from the seriousness of someone's crime, nothing affects that individual sentence more than their own criminal history. This generally means that when someone repeatedly commits more crimes, their subsequent sentences tend to be

and likely should be harsher. In states such as California that have adopted three strikes laws, these harsher sentences have increased the prison population. But guess what? These laws are effective at combating crime. Sadly, many elected officials at the local and state levels, as well as federal leaders, have ignored common sense policies and have instead pushed policies that hurt public safety.

And these places are like Chicago, California, or San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City. They just have a revolving door of Chrome.

One simple action that any Justice Department should pursue is an emphasis on felon in possession prosecution, Section 922G cases, as they're colloquially known after the relevant US code section. This provision makes it illegal for those who have been convicted of a felony and those who meet certain other requirements to possess a firearm.

Think about it. By definition, if someone is convicted of this offense, they already have a felony conviction. They're disregarding relevant laws by illegally possessing a firearm. And from a resource perspective, these cases tend to be straightforward to prosecute and are very effective in targeting individuals who are often drivers of violent crime in their own communities. And so what he's saying is, if you are a felon, you cannot possess a firearm.

which means that you have already chosen to break the law. Law one, possessing firearms, then robbing murder, yada, yada, yada.

The Justice Department, under the Trump administration, prioritized prosecuting these cases, particularly in jurisdictions burdened with rogue prosecutors at the local level, and hopefully will prioritize them again. The District of Columbia with its unique status also provides insight into what happens when local leaders defund the police and prosecutors refuse to prosecute crimes. Crime rates, including gun crimes, increase as a result.

Because of the district's unique status, subject to Congress's control, reforming these problematic policies should be a top priority. Finally, the committee does deserve praise for holding today's hearing in at least two regards. First, today's hearing focuses albeit indirectly on victims. Too often today, criminals are treated as victims, and the true victims are the forgotten component when discussing crime, violence, and criminal justice reforms.

Second, the committee deserves praise for considering this problem rather than passing the task to unelected unaccountable individuals in administrative agencies. So while this case in efforts would be better. That was the problem with the original crime problem taking place across our country. At least the conversation is taking place here with the American people's elected representatives. I appreciate the committee's invitation to testify and I welcome the committee's questions.

Thank you, Mr. Smith, Ms. Sanchez Gomez. All right, here we go. Thank you, Chairman Durban and members of the committee for the opportunity to testify here today. My name is Esther Sanchez Gomez, and I'm the litigation director with Giffords Law Center to prevent gun violence. I'm here to talk to you about machine guns, dangerous weapons that Congress has taken action on repeatedly, and for which there's no constitutional impediment to legislation. But I'd like to begin.

says you. Yeah, hang on. Where'd she get that? So in Heller, they said that there is a ability to regulate certain arms. So that's the reason that we can regulate like the 86. Yeah, that's the reason that we got the Hughes Amendment was because they said that some firearms could be regulated by Congress.

And so, but from our perspective, all gun laws are infringements. And by reflecting on the origins of the organization that I represent nearly 14 years ago, which let me say this one more time, bump stocks do not make machine guns and conversion devices, clock switches are already illegal.

In my hometown, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head during a sick constituent event. On that January morning in Tucson in 2011, six people were killed and 12 others injured. Six years later, my fellow panelist, Laura O'Donnell, survived a different mass shooting. One that killed 60 people and injured 500 more. That gunman equipped his firearms with bump stocks.

Allegedly when a rifle is modified with a bump stock the shooter. I don't believe it, but you know once and I definitely don't believe it continuously. So long as the supposedly there's already been an investigation that kind of got swept under the road, but we're not going to talk about that. I guess Peter keeps his trigger finger stationary and applies forward pressure by leaning into the bump side resets the trigger, which is not a machine gun. It's resetting the trigger. Yeah. Being heard at the scene that day was accurately described as machine gun fire.

Because it was. Perhaps the biggest tragedy is that these shootings aren't just isolated moments in our nation's history, but examples of the sort of preventable gun violence that continues to ravage this country.

In response to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting and under President Trump's direction, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, amended its regulations to make clear that bump stocks meet the current federal definition of a machine gun. As machine guns, they were subject to the federal ban. But this past June, the Supreme Court supplanted its firearms expertise for that of- Because the ATF cannot make decisions like that.

The Supreme Court didn't decide from a legal, from a firearms expert's perspective. They did it from a constitutional perspective saying that the ATF cannot do that. The ATF, an issued a decision in Garland versus Cargill, striking down ATS regulation. Although bomb stocks are currently regulated by a number of states, they are now legal under federal law.

Unfortunately, bump stocks aren't the only devices equipping shooters with weapons capable of automatic fire. In March of this year, eight high schoolers were shot while waiting at a bus stop in Philadelphia. The shooter fired 30 rounds in mere seconds. The gunman was able to do so because his Glock hands

All right. I hadn't heard about this one, but, you know, some of that stuff kind of gets away when I don't, I don't live there. So the problem is, if you really looked into that, I bet you're probably looking at gangs.

gang violence. Yeah, to pull up and just start shooting a group of kids at a bus stop. You're probably looking at a gang activity, either gang initiation, either in gang killing a getting back at somebody for killing somebody else.

I mean the gang initiation things are wild to me. Yeah, because I had a teacher who claims she was from Detroit and She died her hair a different color because games apparently one of the initiations was to eliminate a blonde woman. Oh, well, that makes sense. So and then you look at like MS 13 and El Salvador you had to kill a family member so

Well, I mean, it's wild. It is. And so more than likely, that's what that was. More than likely, I would assume. But with that being said, Glock switches are already illegal. And gun was equipped with an auto sear. Auto seers are small Lego size machine gun conversion devices. They can be easily inserted into a firearm, allowing it to fire continuously with a single pull of the trigger.

These devices are also called switches or Glock switches, because of their pervasive use on Glock pistols. Unlike bump stocks, autosues are classified as machine guns under federal law and are currently illegal. So what's the deal? Despite this, autosues have proliferated significantly in recent years with the help of online marketplaces and the rise of 3D printing technology.

ATF's most recent data shows that there was a 570% increase, 570% increase in auto-seers recovered by the agency during the last decade. That statistic is, sadly, born out in the lived trauma of our communities.

This isn't the first period of American life marred by machine gun violence. During the 1920s and 30s, the country was rocked by a gun violence epidemic fueled by prohibition era organized crime. This violence spurred Congress to action. They passed the National Firearms Act in 1934 to regulate automatic firearms through registration and taxation. As technology changed, our regulation of automatic firearms has adapted to keep pace.

Since 1934, Congress has acted twice to address the violence that the proliferation of machine guns and conversion devices causes. First, in 1968, Congress expanded the definition of machine gun to include a combination of parts that could convert a weapon into a machine gun. Then, in 1986, Congress completely banned civilian ownership of newly manufactured machine guns. Congress has repeatedly taken action. Which means that their machine guns are not illegal.

action to regulate machine. And you don't see people running around with antique machine guns killing people. Yeah, I have it sent to Tom again, because I mean, um, when we're in six teams down 50s, like, you don't think people can get those? Like, come on now guns and address technological advances and workarounds.

The violence we see perpetrated today with bump stocks and auto-seers can be prevented. Congress has the constitutional authority to ban bump stocks, and Congress can grant ATF and other federal law enforcement agencies the resources to properly enforce these laws. We aren't condemned to live in a society where every shooting is a mass shooting. Our schools, places of worship, political rallies, concerts, and other gatherings need to be protected from gun violence.

The Supreme Court has made- How about violence? How about just we need to protect them from violence? Why are we putting qualifiers on there? It's clear that you can act and the harm occurring in our communities compels you to do so. Thank you again, Chairman Durban and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for the opportunity to testify here today. I look forward to answering your questions. Thanks, Ms. Sanchez Gomez. Mr. Clickner, before you be in, I do thank you for serving our country. You're welcome today to start your testimony.

Good morning, Chairman Nurbin and Senators of the Committee. I'm Ryan Klechner. I'm an attorney specializing in federal firearms law and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives compliance. I'm here today as a firearms expert to talk about the legal and technical qualities and the differences between bump stocks and conversion devices. And I'd like to address them separately because they are two very different things. Now, a machine gun under the National Firearms Act

is a firearm that will expel more than one bullet for a single operation of the trigger. Bump stocks are not machine guns. They are pieces of plastic that should be put onto some firearms in place of their standard buttstock that allow someone to bump fire the firearm. Now, the term bump fire, that's not illegal.

Matter of fact, I can bump fire a firearm without a bump stock. Bump firing is nothing more than allowing a firearm to move rearward under its recoil and then be pulled back into a stationary trigger finger. Now, bump stocks do make it easier for some people to bump fire.

But that's all they are. The fundamental operation of the firearm has not been changed. The trigger still needs to be manipulated every single time a bullet comes out of the firearm. Just like it was designed and intended. That's why Congress, our Supreme Court switched it back. Putting this into perspective of how big of a problem bump stocks by themselves are. The FBI's most recent crime stats from last year.

say that all rifles were used in about 15,000 incidences of violent crime. Includes all categories of violent crime by the FBI. Blunt objects such as hammers were used 78,000 times. More than five times more than all rifles, not just rifles which could have a bump stock or even the smaller category of rifles that actually did have a bump stock on them.

Yeah, like how do you, how do you say that rifles are such a big problem when if you get whacked over the head with a hammer? Oh, it's okay. It's no problem. Now I don't think you should regulate hammers or like in the UK, the stabbings. Yeah. Well, I think just, uh, was it yesterday? Um, there was a stabbing in China.

or something like that. Or maybe it was Friday, it was a school or something. I think it's China. Well, I mean, okay, let's take it a step further, taking a car through a crowded street. Well, I could France a couple of years ago. He's about to bring up a very good point. So let him finish. The only evidence I can find of a bump stock being used is the horrible, horrific 2017 Las Vegas shooting. And what that mass murderer did was already illegal. It's horrific.

I don't think a bump stock being on some of his firearms makes a difference enough to try to redefine the law about what these items are. Now, these conversion devices or Glock switches or auto-seers, they are absolutely machine guns.

Not only the National Firearms Act defying the firearm, but later laws like the Gun Control Act says that any parts that can be used to convert a firearm into a machine gun are also a firearm. That's what these things are. They're already heavily regulated. They're already completely illegal. The ATF is already going out of the way to enforce this rise that we have with them being used.

But we don't know how they're getting here. I know. Supposedly. They're being imported right now to this country. And they're not being stopped as they're being imported to this country. Exactly. I think the way that we solve this problem is not to make an item more illegal. Because its status of being a significantly illegal item does nothing, apparently, to stop these criminals from using them. I mean, that's the definition of a criminal, right? Someone who doesn't obey the law.

I don't think we can make them more illegal. And if we did, I don't think that's going to stop their use. I think what's going to stop their use is if we. This is the reason that I like Ryan Kletner when he like he explains it and you're just like, well, that makes a lot of sense because you can't make something more illegal. Just not possible. Well, I mean, nothing to get to see other three guys or people.

he's not reading anything. No, not at all. He's speaking right off the top of his hair. You're you are right about I didn't even think about that. But yeah, he didn't I guess he has bullet points. I don't know. Well, I guess that comes from being an attorney. Well, one of the other ones is attorney to actually

The girl was an attorney and I think the guy from the Heritage Foundation is some type of an attorney or works legally with something. They prosecute the criminals that are using these illegal items. If we keep these dangerous people off the streets and we do maybe the best we can to stop the influx of these items across our border. I'm also seeing lawsuits right now against firearms companies like Glock

saying that their design somehow invites the use of these devices. I think on its face that's false. I think the reason that there are common with glocks is because glocks are so common.

60% or more of law enforcement across the country uses Glock pistols. The capital police I passed on the way in this building had Glock pistols on. That's why they're so common. I think lawsuits against these companies, I think a misguided focus on trying to make certain items more illegal is only going to harm more Americans because the real solution is getting the bad people off the streets. Thank you, I welcome your questions. Thank you, Mr. Clerkner, Mr. O'Donnell.

Good morning Chairman Durbin and committee members. My name is Laura O'Donnell. I'm a retired Chicago police lieutenant and I am one of the over 22,000 survivors of the 2017 Route 91 Music Festival in Las Vegas. I spent over 24 years serving some of the most violent areas of Chicago. I'm accustomed to seeing people on their worst day.

I witnessed numerous crime scenes. I'm going to go in and skip her because she just talks about her being there. She was a cop in Chicago and we're going to go on and skip it because not that her testimony is not important. It is, but we're going to try to shorten this video up a little bit. But she is there as a victim of that shooting, which was very bad. It really was. Be the same.

Thank you. Thank you. Not only for your testimony about that horrible day in your life, but for your service as a police officer in Chicago. It's not an easy assignment and I respect the fact that you did it for over 20 years. So let me ask you this.

Do you think most policemen that you served with in Chicago or in other places would agree that bump stocks have no place to be sold in the United States? Yes, I believe most police officers would agree with me with that. You shouldn't answer that question like that. I'm sorry. I'm not taking anything away from what you went through. You should not speak on the behalf of all police officers.

Because number one, bump socks are not illegal. And you're not talking about conversion devices. You're not talking about machine guns. That was a horribly placed question that I don't believe that she should have answered. Most people would have said, I don't don't speak for everybody, but for me, I don't like it. I would have been okay with that. Like you can have your opinion perfectly with my own name, but don't speak on behalf of all police officers.

Yeah, that's not a. I would say a fair assessment. Well, that's not your place at a judiciary committee. No. I don't know that if that was held in court, that that would have been. Well, no, but that wouldn't have been asking court either. Well, Mr. Clerk, you would go missing to zero in on the mechanics of mass shooting.

when we think of purpose of the Second Amendment for self-defense, sport, and hunting. Is there a circumstance that you think in the ordinary course of life where you need to have that capacity of a firearm? The CIA has particular skills. This is, I can already tell this is not going to be good.

Senator Durbin respectfully, I think you're missing a category of why the second amendment exists. We wrote it shortly after overthrowing a tyrannical government. And I think that a bump stock, although he just said this in a judiciary committee.

That is a drop the mic moment to me. And he even posted a video like I never thought that I would be saying this in a committee in front of senators, but it's true. Like you can't take that away from the second amendment. Has no application for hunting and maybe not very much for self-defense. I don't believe that banning this item would stop a criminal that's already willing to ignore so many other laws.

You just mix two things up. We talked about ending tyranny against the United States. And you talked about a criminal in the same breath. Fair. Now, it was fair. Now, in Ryan's defense, and, you know, he's in this, in the, in the moment, he brought up the fact for hunting itself to fans and Ryan was clarifying the finishing of that idea and then moving on into

that it's not going to fix the problem. And so that's why, and Ryan just didn't clarify that, you know, not to be a but or anything. He didn't clarify that further for that reason. I would assume I'm not going to speak for him, but he didn't bring up tyranny and Ryan finished the thought. I don't understand. What I'm saying, sir, is a senator is that banning an item or making it illegal.

is not going to prevent a criminal from using it. It's already illegal for that shooter to be a mass murderer. It's already illegal for them to do many other things that the laws did not prevent them from doing. So let's stick with your logic. What's the point of banning machine guns? Well, machine guns, Senator, are actually legal. They are legal for some people to possess. They're just extremely regulated. And I've said a violation of constitutional right to regulate that firearm. Number two.

I think most gun laws are infringements of the second amendment. Yes, Senator. Well, I think that's where we're going to part company, because I think most people would agree, even fire owners and my own family, that reasonable regulation is not too much to ask if it means saving the life of innocent people. When you hear Mrs. O'Connell, Ms. O'Donnell's portrayal of what happened, you described it as a mass murder. Yes. You described it as horrific.

And to think that some regulation might slow down the purchase of a device which converts a regular on a regular gun into an automatic gun Which it is not semi to make it automatic gun It's an unreasonable Restrictor and the constitutional rights. I think that's where we would disagree certainly would missing Benjamin Franklin once said the What it oh, I'm gonna mess it up

If you give up liberty for safety, you'd deserve in either borderline something like that. Sanchez Gomez, when it comes to the incidents of mass shootings and the proliferation of these devices, what do you see lies ahead?

I think it's incredibly important that we regulate these weapons. Machine guns are designed to do one thing, kill a lot of people in a very short amount of time. We have been regulating machine guns in this country since the beginning of the 20th century. We made them unlawful for civilian ownership in the 1980s, and we need to extend into the future our regulation of machine guns to incorporate changes in technology, workarounds that the gun industry has found for the current state of the law.

And there is no constitutional impediment for doing so. I think it says you. Hang on. There's no way that I could ever do this ever, just because I just sit in on it and they actually have an op like opportunity to speak. I love it. I'm not in the military, but I do know what a machine gunner's purpose in the military is for.

Now, if people are storming the beaches of Normandy, the machine go was laying down fire, right? It's it's a suppressive fire mechanism. Yes, it's supposed to stop movement of troops, not mass execution of like, I mean, it's very frustrating because you are correct. It was designed

Now it was designed to put as many people down as possible. Okay. So the machine guns came into effect in the First World War because we were sending thousands of people over this wall to go charge you and me. Well, the best thing to do at that point was to put a gun that could fire multiple rounds. Don't hit the table. Sorry. Anyway, then mow that down to stop them from coming. That's how we got these huge stalemates. Yeah, because I mean, at that point, we were still sending people over with horses.

So it baffles my mind that oh because it's the military style what weapon that it you know every every weapon that we have came from the military started as the military because the military has seemingly uncapped amount of money to research and ask for new manufacturers to work on firearms and after they either

don't make it into the military after the trials we get them as civilians or after the military has had them for a little while the companies decide to sell to civilians so every firearm started itself out as a at least partial weapon of war just it is how it is every one of them

muskets were not like, yes, they were they were had by the civilians, but they were designed for parts of war. Well, you had muskets and then as technology progressed, you had the rifle barrels. Most muskets back then were smooth bore. Well, yeah. And then the rifling came about. And then the May ball came about. So it, you know, looks like a more modern bullet. Then we had the Spencer cartridge. Then we had gunpowder, smokeless powder. So

Just from my perspective, I wouldn't want a machine gun for self-defense unless I'm in war. Because one, it wastes a lot of ammo. And I would rather have a more precise, consistent shooting than just less controllable. Oh my goodness, this makes no sense. Sorry, my little ramp. I think of this situation just a few years ago in Highland Park, Illinois on the 4th of July.

when people were assembled for a Fourth of July parade. And there were many members of law enforcement there who were watching the scene and even marching in the parade. And a lone shooter got on a roof of a building and fired off, I believe, 83 rounds and 60 seconds, killing seven people and injuring dozens of others. It was a young man who had

some mental issues before that day, and his father decided that it could. I'm just going to say that I could probably pop off 83 rounds in 60 seconds, even with a reload. I mean, that's two and a half mags with an AR.

I bet that I could dump three mags in 60 seconds with a reload. And I have not done any rifle training. But how accurate is that going to be though? Yeah, I don't know. How many shots did that kid shoot at with Trump? Like eight total. And he hit a lot of people considering the backdrop.

For him to do is to buy this type of assault weapon and practice within a shooting range and prepared him for that. Not on a thought weapon, it's changed lives in every direction. I look at them and think, what is the purpose of his ownership of that gun? Is it to stop tyranny? According to Mr. Klechner, that's one of the elements that went into the Founding Fathers' calculation of the Second Amendment. What do you think about that?

The Supreme Court has been incredibly clear that military style weapons are not protected by the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has explained that any reading of the Second Amendment and of the court's decisions would be startling if it implied that the NFA and its regulations of machine guns was unconstitutional.

Professor Ludwig, when you hear Mr. Smith describe, this is a gun violence problem or a crime problem and not an issue that should involve firearms. I don't think he mentioned bump stock in his testimony, maybe once in the beginning. What is your reaction? I think one

Potentially useful comparison is the United States versus the United Kingdom. When you look at rates of, so there's a sense in which Mr. Smith is right that there are countries around the world that have lots of guns and very low crime rates, and that does not lead to lots of gun violence. As many glocks with switches as they did when they first started tracking them in 2021, that's

only in two years. Could you talk? And we've seen these same kind of numbers nationally. How does the increase proliferation of illegal machine gun conversion devices threaten public safety? The first time I shared this with my clients, they lost their minds. I've been teaching webinar presentations for the public. So we're seeing these increases, unfortunately, as you know, it's Senator, in every big city in which I've been able to see the data, we're seeing these increases.

I think the challenge that the growing use of machine gun conversion devices play may be combined with the availability of high-capacity magazines.

Good thing this part will be cut out. So I'm going to cut this section out too because she asks him a question and then she goes, oh, you're not a lawyer. And then she asks the woman from the Giffords Law Center in. So I'm just doing this for the podcast version. So we're going to move on up here.

reduce or defund not the ATF on the national basis coming from some of our federal colleagues. She's not even sure she's talking to you. One example of ATF working with the same poll police department, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and our US attorney who's well respected on both sides of the aisle, Andy Luger, to investigate and convict a teenager who led police down a high-speed chase after firing a Glock equipped with a machine gun conversion device.

which is already illegal. I feel like we're just beating a dead horse. Why is this hearing a combination on bump stocks and conversion devices? I know that they're trying to combine them. They're saying that bump stocks are conversion devices, but we can have the discussion if bump stocks change it into a machine gun.

But to say that they do the exact same thing, completely the exact same thing is just odor ignorance and a law. If she would have been there to hear Ryan Clickner speak, he actually said that. Who is a weapons expert, in my opinion? Yeah.

into a densely populated neighborhood. Can you talk about the importance of funding ATF in addition to putting in place better safety guardrails when it comes to these devices? Thank you, Senator. I think that that's exactly right. We need to be giving law enforcement the resources that they're asking for. We've been hearing from attorneys general across the country and from ATF and from local law enforcement that they need more education and more resources to understand the scope of the problem.

don't defund the police. So the side of the aisle that spent four years gutting the police department now says that we need to fund them to find lock switches because it fits their agenda at this moment in time. It's just idiotic.

Well, it's hypocrisy at its best. And I could not sit beside her and look at her and not say you're a hypocrite. I just flat out just lying to look at her and like I look at you sometimes just go. Do you know what you're saying? Oh, oh, me.

and to address it at the source, which is, one, importantly, preventing these items from being trafficked into the country and preventing them from ending up in the hands of people who would use them to do harm. Harm like the harm that occurred in Detroit, Michigan, when two people were killed and 19 others injured at a neighborhood block party.

It's important that we give law enforcement the tools that they're asking for. These are already illegal as been mentioned a number of times and preventing them from ending up in our communities is the most important first step in combating the problem. I don't understand why that's so difficult. Ms. O'Donnell, thank you for your work and your

searing testimony. I believe we need to do more to protect our law enforcement officers and support them. That's why I lead the cops through authorization bill and have done a lot of work in this area. Could you talk about the challenges that law enforcement face when responding to gun violence incidences that involve handguns that are illegally modified into automatic

Thank you for the question. What I could say is I think just the last few officers from Chicago who died in line of duty were all from switches. So. That are already illegal. Illegal. We're not talking about bump stocks killing cops. Like I stand with police officers all day long in almost every situation. What in the world are we talking about here? We're talking about rock switches.

You don't have time to react. Sorry, you don't have time to react when they pull a gun on you, a normal gun. After shots get fired, it's very difficult. If you ever listen to anybody talking about self-defense shootings, you cannot out draw a drawn gun. It's not possible.

You're not going to beat them to the draw if they already have their gun looking at you. It's just that simple. Defiring too fast. We don't have the same weapons firing back. So it is a big problem. It's definitely multiplied in the last few years as Professor Ludwig said. And now might not beat cops, but I'm about guarantee that there's a selector switch on SWAT.

Almost every big SWAT team has full water. Yeah, I was about to say they probably have that third option. It's becoming a bigger and bigger problem.

Now, it's probably a less likely thing now, but that was a big thing for a while because you can, as an FFL, a Class III, you can request a law letter saying that you will demonstrate a full auto to fire department. I mean, police department, fire departments. You might need that in Chicago. But anyway. Thank you very much. Thank you. Senator Rona.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I sit here, I remember one of our earlier hearings on firearms legislation, and that both the minority witnesses as well, in fact, the entire panel consisting of majority minority witnesses said they agreed that this nation is awash in guns.

Sir, David, you mentioned that we have over 400 million guns and 330 million Americans. So we are awash in guns. I mean, is there anybody on this panel who does not think that we are awash in guns in this country? Raise your hand if you think otherwise. Okay. So we are awash in guns and meanwhile, the Supreme Court and various decisions. Heller was my thing is, what does that matter? How many more vehicles are there than people?

Yeah, I don't, I don't understand how that makes that big of it. How many more knives hammers? It's a tool. Yeah, it's a tool. It's pretty much an astounding decision to me when suddenly individuals could, the Second Amendment individuals could own firearms, but Scalia did say that. All right, I'm going to back this up so that we don't miss it. According to her,

The Heller decision is what gave us the Second Amendment. I missed the mistake. Yep, here we go. Much an astounding decision to me. The Supreme Court and various decisions. Heller was pretty much an astounding decision to me when suddenly individuals could, the Second Amendment individuals could own firearms, but Scalia did say. You can't make this up.

Like she didn't say that Heller let you carry them outside of your home or gave you the right or technically codified the right to be able to carry outside your home. She said Heller said that the Second Amendment gave you rights. That's not what Heller did. So the Second Amendment has been around for a very long time. How did you even get elected? I'm pretty sure that I saw that she's from Hawaii.

that we could legislate various kinds of limitations, I suppose you could call it that. And then you head fast forward to the Bruin decision where suddenly we're supposed to look to what the founding fathers thought about in what 1791 or some astounding time frames such as that, Bruin has led to some unintended consequences. Why don't we take away the first amendment?

Why don't we take away the 19th amendment? That's over, what, 50 years old now. Why don't we take, why don't we take away the 13th, the 14th? Yeah. Why don't we get rid of the 14th? That was during the Civil War and we decided that or after the Civil War that we would give rights to everybody in the country. Why don't that's an old, that's an old right now. So there's women to vote? That's what I'm saying. Like she's a woman in the Senate.

That doesn't make any sense. This is by the way. Here we sit, debating about whether or not we should put some limits on these kinds of enhanced weapons.

My staff just showed me a video of how fast these enhanced weapons shoot. And I can understand why in the Las Vegas situation, so many people were killed, astounding, horrifying.

And just listening to the firepower of these weapons, one question whether or not these should be illegal at all. And we should not be sitting here talking about whether ATF can regulate these firearms or whether it is somehow left to Congress. Hey, good luck.

It's always Congress. It's always Congress. That's your job. It's your job. It's your job to make laws. You don't even know your own job. No, she doesn't. You are. I'm sorry. You're idiot. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, she's from Hawaii. I don't care where she's from an island that acts communist and acts like there that the Constitution does not apply there because of the Hawaiian spirit, which is what they said in one of the

We're actually a Second Amendment argument in one of their courts at one point. Like leave the United States. Your job is to make laws. It is not the ATF's job to make laws.

Now, they have a thin margin to regulate certain items under their jurisdiction. But if you as Congress has not made something illegal, it is not within their purview to make something illegal. Now, after you make a law that is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court slaps your hand and says, you can't do that,

Then you go back and you say, well, it's a TS job and we didn't do it. Like, sorry, but that's just lazy. You, you, you, like Don said, you have no idea what your job is.

So I hardly know where to start. Exactly. That is the problem. It does occur to me that there are very few instances where Congress has rendered companies to be immune. So gun manufacturers are immune from the consequences of people using their products.

Exactly. Yep, they are immune or they are shielded from litigation against manufacturers of firearms that criminals used to commit crimes. Oh, we're going to go after Chevy and GM. Yeah, drunk driving.

or Jack Daniels, or not even drug driving. Let's say that somebody decides that they're going to kill people with the car on purpose, like the van that went through the parade. Are we going to go after that car manufacturer? Because that guy decided to use your car as a tool as and murder people. It does not the protection of law, forling commerce act.

the protection of lawful Commerce Act. I feel like there's extra words in there. Anyway, that does not stop them from being sued if they have a faulty product that ends up hurting somebody. That is not what it does. It stops governments and people from suing manufacturers for the misuse of their product.

I can't stand. Is there a possibility that gun manufacturers is making them liable? Is that an approach that we should consider? This is the one she doesn't know if these are lawyer or not.

I'm not a lawyer, so I wouldn't want to thank you for the question, Senator. I'm not a lawyer, so I wouldn't want to speak to the legality of that. I think what I would, as an economist and a social scientist, I would talk about the larger

data and evidence about the effects of product regulation. And I think we have lots of examples from other products like motor vehicles where changing product designs have led to massive improvements in safety, whether that's through litigation. Because now what they're talking about here is changing Glock so that it's harder to put one of these conversion devices. So there's a problem with that.

One, you're talking about manufacturing of 30 SKUs at this point. I don't know how many Glock versions there are now. Really? Well, you're probably talking about. And then generational. Probably 15 slide versions. Let's say, let's say 15 to 20 slide versions of variations. Do you say from now on, you have to change that manufacturing.

which here's, here's a kicker for that. It would kick it off of the firearms roster in Florida. I mean, in California. So from that point on, you would not be able to buy a Glock unless if you could get it put back on the handgun roster in California. So only a Gen 3 right now, the reason that Gen 3s are so prolific is because

Gen three is the last version of Glock that was able to be put on the earned that was grandfathered in put on. I don't know exactly because I don't live in California, put on the registry, the handgun list. So you're not going to get a new Glock in California after this.

So, well, okay, he brought up car manufacturer when say you buy a, well, you can't mail a Dodge charger and you put the supercharger in it. It's going to perform differently than the original temp for it. Well, now if you listen to the way that he's talking,

It sounds more like regulation, meaning when we put, he is making the connection from, let's say, putting seat belts in cars at one point.

Yeah, I think that's where he's going with it. And she's wanting to go from the other direction. Well, the seat belts don't change the performance of the car. What I'm saying is, is that there are so many instances in the car scene where people are souping up their cars, they don't really realize it. And then they're going to these car shows and then to impress people.

they do burnouts and donuts. And then they hit somebody because they're not. Oh, crap. No idea what they're doing. So, and that, I mean, I've seen so many videos for people were just doing donuts and then, you know, they lose control and, you know, they hit people. So are we going to outlaw superchargers and turbos? I mean, yeah.

issue approaches or regulation approaches, we can see that when products become safer products that are prone to misuse that can wind up leading lives. Do we not have any lawyers on the panel? Okay, so. Should have been your for the introduction. Gomez.

That's exactly right. I have a lawyer. Yes. Yes. What about holding manufacturers liable? I think it's a really, really important point. I think regulating the gun industry in the way that we regulate got other industries using litigation, which changes incentives for them to act in ways that are responsible, to act in ways that prevent the foreseeable harmful consequences of their actions is an incredibly important tool of our civil legal system.

Could states hold gun manufacturers liable or is this an area that only the federal government can act? Well, the federal government should be the federal government. The Congress passed a law that gives the gun industry broad immunity. It's not immunity. It's not absolute immunity, but it is very broad and unprecedented for this industry. And so the federal government is the one that needs to act if we want to repeal that immunity. Well, but the question is, can states act?

Can states enact legislation that was going to affect just liable? Yeah, absolutely. And states are passing laws. OK, I think that's one of the ways that we can proceed. So the fact of the matter is, as I watch what the Supreme Court is doing, and I have described, by the way, this Supreme Court majority as an auto control Supreme Court, because I have a growing list of precedents that this is. Good thing nobody asked you.

because obviously you have no idea what the Constitution is and what the Constitution was meant to do. And I think that you forgot what you were put in place today agreed to uphold when you took your position.

Supreme Court is tossing out in so many areas of the law and they're not done yet. So I just want to say to this committee and my wonderful members of the Judiciary Committee that I think we need to pay attention to Supreme Court reform starting with that they don't even have any ethics provisions that apply to them. You're reading the constitution. That's a good issue. Ooh, you literally

Get out of your mouth that you believe that the second amendment doesn't cover firearms or that Heller gave us the second amendment and that you believe that we should be able to regulate firearms, which is exactly backwards from the second from the second amendment. And then two sentences later, two sections later, you're sitting here saying that our Supreme Court is the problem because they have no ethics.

just reading the law. Like you have no idea what you took an oath to uphold, none at all. You talked about a lot and I hope we'll continue to. Ms. Sanchez Gomez, how is it that a person can buy a 3D printer with instructions from the internet to create a Glock switch or a ghost gun? What is that all about?

manufacturing firearms has been around since the beginning of the country. You have the right in, now you have the second amendment right to build your firearms in your house. Now, you may not be allowed to in your certain state because tyrants are going to tyrant. But building your own firearms, these quote unquote ghost guns, because they don't have a serial number.

should be, and is in most states, completely legal.

are incredibly small devices, they're lego-sized devices that are very simplistic, easy to manufacture. And that's also why they're so easy to traffic into this country. They're small, they're difficult to detect. And that's why a bill like Senator Klobuchars, which would give resources to law enforcement to prevent these from being trafficked into the country, to detect marketing that is deceptive to consumers, that implies that these are lawful to own. That's why we need to get ahead of this problem.

to stop it from getting into our communities in every direction. Why are pistols equipped with another device which we haven't spoken much about this stabilizing brace, particularly dangerous to the public? Which is not part of this hearing, so I don't really know why we are getting into this, but here we go. Case, particularly dangerous to the public.

So stabilizing braces are not machine guns. I want to start off by being clear. When we talk about stabilizing braces, we're talking about short barrel rifles. And short barrel rifles are more dangerous because they allow a pistol to be shot from the shoulder, which gives it more power and more velocity and therefore more. You are idiot. You have no idea.

You have, you lose velocity. What is the term that out-punted your coverage? You're not even playing football. You have no idea what you're talking about. You're reading the rule book for baseball and this in football. And this next section is going to get good.

mentality, but still being concealable in the way that a pistol is because it's smaller. Stabilizing braces were initially designed to allow a shooter to stabilize a handgun on the wrist or forearm, but what started happening was

The original design of the pistol brace was to stabilize on the forearm so that you could shoot a rifle one handed for disabled people. It was designed for a disability and people decided and figured out that it does work as multiple points of contact and the ATF has.

went back and forth, regulations, and said that it was okay, and then not okay, and then okay, and not okay, and then it's okay now, I think. And so, let's continue. Is that the gun industry saw a loophole where they began designing stabilizing braces that allowed a shooter to shoot from the shoulder, thereby making, converting that weapon into a short-brelled rifle, which is regulated under the National Firearms Act, subject to taxation and registration.

Mr. Klechner, what do you think about that? I don't think pistol braces are a... All I want to say is, is look at the guy behind him. He's like ready for something. Oh, no. That's the owner who faced when the teacher called your name and you weren't paying attention. Problem. I don't think they're being used in crimes. I don't think they're making crimes worse.

I think she brings up a great point about the concealability. I think it makes it much harder to conceal a pistol when there's a pistol brace on. It makes it much larger. And if we're going to talk about increased lethality and velocity, a pistol brace does neither of those. In fact, a regular rifle has increased velocity and lethality. And that has a regular butt stuck on it, which is arguably worse than a pistol brace.

So who pistols with braces have been used in several mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and Boulder, Colorado, but you don't think that's a problem? I'm not saying it's a problem that they're being used, Senator. I think that, like I said before, I think banning them's not gonna stop it any more than the banning mass murder is gonna stop it. Ms. Gomez, any reaction to that?

When we talk about firearms, we know that access to firearms is a key tool in reducing firearm violence, in reducing gun violence. And I think that regulating access to dangerous weapons like machine guns, like short barreled rifles is an important tool that we have to reduce gun violence in this country. I see Senator Blumenthal has returned. I recognize. Thank you, Senator German. Thank you for having this hearing and

You know, I must say, as I talk to law enforcement personnel and can I get around the country, these kinds of conversion devices call them glocks, which is whatever, are among their biggest worries because they're on the firing line. They're the one. They're already illegal. I should have put up a counter just how many times I get to say that.

Glock switches are already illegal. I think we're way past double digits at this point. Make at least 15, 20. Yeah. Ones who often are targets and they're outmatched when their adversary's criminals have these kinds of devices that can convert

semi automatics into automatics. And even if you say they should be permitted to some extent, I'm wondering whether gun manufacturers don't have responsibility to make devices that they sell safer.

And I know that Senator Hirono kind of raised Placa. I have been a long time advocate of repealing Placa and enabling litigants who have been harmed the opportunity to take action against gun manufacturers, just as they do against manufacturers of cars, toasters, most consumer product.

if there is a manufacturing defect that leads to injury or death, serious bodily harm, placa, the protection of lawful commerce and arms act, does not protect firearms companies from litigation. If it is a manufactured defect,

If a madman decides to pick up said rifle or gun or car or knife or baseball bat or hammer, there should be protections for the manufacturer because some psychopath picked up an object to murder people. That's what we're discussing here.

we're discussing the stupidity in the idea that just because your product gets used in murder, it's your fault somehow. Like, excuse me? All consumer products, except some that are given a specific exemption. So, Mr. Ludwig,

to protect them from overbearing senators that do not remember their oath of office. Let me ask you, are there ways that private litigants, if given the right to take action? And I was Attorney General of the State of Connecticut for some 20 years, but I used to welcome the people I called private attorneys general who indicated the public interest.

by taking action on their own behalf, would gun manufacturers have more of an incentive to make their products safer and to avoid the kind of advertising that they do now often appealing to young men as a matter of their manhood if there were the right of individuals to take action in our courts?

Thank you, Senator, for the question. I'm an economist. I look at data for a living. Don't forget, he's not a lawyer. Lots of these regulations in the past. So we don't have a lot of data to look at what would happen in the case of firearms specifically, but we can look at other consumer products.

where we've changed incentives for manufacturers. I mentioned automobiles earlier. There's a long list of examples of whether it's regulation or whether it's litigation, where we've changed incentives for manufacturers to improve the safety of their products. And we've seen big improvements in product safety and response.

All right, so just to make sure that people can believe me, and when I say that if you create a product that has a manufacturer defect, that placket does not protect you from a manufacturing defect, what it does is it stops litigation from somebody using it in a way to murder people, okay?

Um, this is from June 24th, 2024. Okay. The trace. Um, it, and it's literally like their headline is investigating gun violence in America. So here we go. Gunmaker SIG saw, SIG sire found liable in shooting accident.

Huh, Georgia jury has found New Hampshire based gun manufacturing six hour liable in the shooting of a man who claimed his P three P three 20 pistol fired when he did not pull the trigger. The jury has also awarded him two point three five million dollars in damages. It's the third of several dozen lawsuits involving the company's flagship handgun to get a trial in the first in which a jury determined that the gun was effectively designed.

Now what that's saying is that just for the simple fact of them being able to take this to a jury trial, that means that Placa is not involved. Because if Placa was involved, a judge would not even look at this case, or it would have been thrown out under those guides.

It was a manufacturing defect that allowed the light spring in the heavy trigger in combination to fire P320s without pulling the trigger without you purposely pulling the trigger. It could fall. It could be bumped the wrong direction. I don't know exactly what the deal was. They have done a lot of recalls, but a manufacturing defect

was just litigated four months ago. So I just proved half of this wrong. I love how they, they're only speaking of three people. Oh yeah. Well, they're the majority witnesses. So they're the only ones that they're there for them. You're asking a litigation question. Talk to the lawyers. Talk to the lawyers. Yeah, not the

criminal economist. Well, like I said, why is he really there? Like I said, now if they would have asked him better questions, he probably would have been better. Like, I'm sure that the numbers would show something. I don't know. The cop was only there because she was part of the Las Vegas shooting.

I feel for her. I really do. But she was there as a victim, which she is a victim of a mass shooting and she was part of it and she has traumatized and I'm not taking anything away from that. But they pulled her as a show.

to put her in front of this because they barely ask her any questions. Nothing, in my opinion, watching this video and the section that we cut out, I watched it beforehand. Nothing that they ask her was worth asking her, honestly. If I'm not mistaken, we have less than 10 minutes left of this video. They do not ask the Heritage Foundation. Yeah, one question.

not one. Let me ask other witnesses whether they have a view on that question. Ask Kletner, Ms. Sanchez Gomez. You have

Thank you, Senator. As a litigator, I know that litigation is an incredibly powerful tool in creating incentives for any industry and the gun industry in particular to change its behavior, to address problems that its products are causing in communities. And I think the repeal of Placa would be an incredible step in that direction. Ms. O'Donnell? Not a lawyer.

What if my team and I did all the work for you? I hate. I'm not a lawyer. So I don't litigate anything, but I think anything to get these high powered and fast firing weapons off the streets is great.

That was probably the worst. She shouldn't have been there. I don't see the point of parading her out and showing off her victim status.

which, like I said, she is a victim. And she should not be used as a political ploy for the Democrats in this committee. And I believe, I wholeheartedly believe that is the only reason that she is there because they needed a victim to parade in front of this committee.

I'm super stressing over this. Oh, yeah. They're like, nothing makes any sense. They're not asked. Like he said, they didn't even ask that one guy. Nothing. Not a thing. Heritage Foundation. They wasted his time. Oh, yeah. And I'm the kind of guy that I would have sat there and be like, you thank you for wasting my time. Exactly.

That's why I hope I never get asked. I mean, the only good thing is that he gets to go. I've been in a city. I sit on a judiciary committee hearing and it was a waste of time.

It was a, it was a waste of time. But the Heritage Foundation, they do a lot of political version of what the economist does. They look at trends and stuff like that. And they, they do a lot of good, in my opinion.

Um, they really are, um, conservative, um, think tank, like they do a lot of good stuff. And I'm, is that who did project 2025? Oh, oh, honest to God, I really don't know enough about product or project 2025. I know it. Yeah. Everybody did heritage. Yeah. Heritage foundation did it. I know that they've been slinging that thing around.

Well, I think that what it is is in this section will be cut out of the actual video also. But I think that the problem with that is Trump distanced himself to get elected. You can take that with what it's worth. I don't fault him. He was not a part of Project 25 one bit. All the heritage foundation did.

with what they do with the American Family Association, what they do every election cycle. They bring up and they say, here is what we would suggest as good cabinet members that have conservative values. Here are judges that would make good federal appointments. And here are Supreme Court justices to have in your back pocket if necessary.

So they are a conservative, a Christian conservative based think tank that have conservatives lined up to be able to help the president in the government. Like, that's what 2025 was. Let's finish this. Yeah, I'm hungry. Thank you, Senator. Okay. Just.

by colleague a moment to get settled in. What did you even come for? So welcome. Miss Sanchez Gomez, what are you for welcoming you? Legal perils to bump stock bands at the state level.

And what legal safeguards do you see, assuming that a state like mine, Rhode Island has a ban on bump stocks, to what extent do you think that is a safe safeguard? Or is it one that can be overruled by Congress, for instance?

I think that. All right. Since you're here, this is Sheldon White House from Rhode Island because until he said his name is state, I would have had no idea how to figure it out. I don't know why they didn't put it into the record. Like welcome Senator White House. I don't understand why they wouldn't have done that. But that's who he is. Let's go through this real quick, just because he doesn't look like he wants to be there. Not at all. And coming in saying welcome, like, dude, you just showed up.

We're welcoming you, buddy. All right. Straight up Democrat. If there is no constitutional impediment to regulating bomb stocks, the Supreme Court has made incredibly clear that machine guns can be regulated, that machine guns are unprotected by the Second Amendment, and bomb stocks are machine guns in that they approximate rates of

They did not say they're not protected by the Second Amendment. They just said that they could be regulated. And now your discussion or your thought process on what regulated and not regulated in the Second Amendment, I believe they shouldn't be regulated. I believe Dalton probably feels the same way. I don't like talking for any regulation. That's right. But with that being said, they were given

a little bit of leeway to allow regulation on certain products that were deemed necessary to be regulated at the time, but Congress decided what things could be regulated under those amendments or laws. The fire that can only be achieved by fully automatic weapons. The Supreme Court in its recent decision, while it's said that ATF could not

bring bump stocks within the federal definition of machine gun. It did invite Congress. Talking about the speed. I have somebody to introduce you to that can outrun a shotgun, a semi-automatic shotgun. He has to temper himself when he shoots a semi-auto shotgun because it doesn't run fast enough.

Congress to act to do just that. His trigger finger will become a machine gun if this lady gets her way. And I think in doing that, it suggested very strongly that Congress could do this constitutionally and that states, of course, could also do this. Well, indulge me in the hypothetical that we end up with a Congress. We're not here to do that. It makes bump stock ban. I never said that the state could regulate it.

The second amendment should be a federal problem or a federal issue. The state should not have that ability, in my opinion, either. It's illegal. At the state level. At the state level. Tries to report that makes, well, indulge me in the hypothetical that we end up with a Congress that makes bump stock bans illegal. At the state level.

at the state level, tries to repeal or override state level bump stock bans. How do you see that fitting into the constitutional matrix? Well, a state is welcome to repeal a bump stock ban if it so chooses. But I think that that would be a dangerous choice because these weapons are incredibly dangerous. They allow a person to shoot a weapon in a way that it increases the lethality of that weapon. No, it hasn't.

One, he asked the question very horribly. He's talking about the new Senate that's coming in from what I'm gathering. Gideon Optics says thanks for supporting the firearms radio network. Check out the rifle optics like the Guardian LPVO and pistol optics like the Omega and Rock. Fair prices and great performance on whatever optics you need. Visit GideonOptics.com where affordability meets quality. Save 10% with code FRN10. Now, listen to another podcast.