Second Amendment

Second Amendment

The Constitution guarantees that law abiding citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. I am committed to safeguarding Second Amendment rights to law-abiding American citizens, and I will fight attempts to weaken those rights. There are 230,000 licensed gun holders in Tennessee, and, to date, no one with a permit has been convicted of a gun related crime.

I am a cosponsor of H.R. 822, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, which allows law-abiding citizens who are permitted to carry a concealed weapon in one state to carry that weapon in another state, subject to his or her permitted state’s restrictions. Our rights do not stop at state lines, and this commonsense legislation updates the law to reflect this. I voted for this legislation when it passed the House by a vote of 272 to 154 on November 16, 2011. The bill currently awaits consideration in the Senate.

You may also be pleased to know that I received a perfect score for my voting record in the 112th  Congress from the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America.

U.N. Treaty

I am a cosponsor of H.R. 3594, the Second Amendment Protection Act. This legislation would end U.S. funding for any international organization that infringes upon our Constitutionally-granted Second Amendment rights.

For as long as I am in Congress, rest assured that I will vote against any legislation that infringes upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and ensure that no international treaty or agreement impedes on those rights.

Fast and Furious

During the 112th  Congress a federal operation known as “Operation Fast and Furious” was initiated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Hearings on this program have revealed startling information about how officials running Operation Fast and Furious operated. For example, they allowed the illegal purchase of guns in the United States despite the fact they had been presented with evidence that the weapons were being transferred to drug gangs in Mexico. In fact, one of these guns was used to kill an American Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, in December 2010.

I do not believe that Attorney General Eric Holder has done enough to cooperate with the investigations of this criminally negligent operation. After initially denying this program’s existence for nearly 9 months, Holder continues to withhold thousands of documents that have been requested for this investigation. Because of the Attorney General’s blatant disregard for the authority of the law, I chose to vote him in contempt of Congress.