Kentucky Lawmaker Wants Members of Congress Armed

Following the shooting of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and several others in Alexandria, Virginia, last week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced legislation that would establish reciprocity for nationwide concealed carry permits in Washington, D.C., H.R. 2909, the D.C Personal Protection Reciprocity Act.

The legislation, which will help law-abiding gun owners circumvent the District’s notoriously restrictive concealed carry laws, is necessary in an increasingly hostile political environment, according to Massie.

“Before President Trump was elected, I would receive eight to 10 phone calls a day from the 750,000 constituents I represent,” Massie told Lifezette. “After President Trump’s election — and the subsequent attempt by the media and the Left to delegitimize the election— now I’ve seen 30 phone calls a day on average,” he said.

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“These are people who were not upset before the president was elected, but now that he’s elected they seem to be angry but they’re not sure who to be angry at, so they are reaching out to their Congressmen — and sometimes expressing quite a bit of anger.”

“In my estimation only five of the 435 members of Congress actually have a security detail,” said Massie. “So it’s like 1 percent of Congress is protected by police when they leave the Capitol, and the other 99 percent are basically playing Russian roulette when they go out in public unarmed.”

“I think we are targets and the recent shooting points out that Republicans, especially in this environment, are targets now,” Massie continued. “It’s not something that I think about everyday, but it’s probably something we should think more about,” he said.

And it seems other members of Congress already are indeed thinking about it.

“I’m not looking for special privileges for members of Congress — I’m looking to reaffirm the right to keep and bear arms for all members of the public.”

“I’m getting cosponsors every day,” Massie said. “As of Friday last week I had 28 cosponsors, and we’ve had a couple sign on since then, so we probably have at least 30 cosponsors,” he said.

The bill also apparently has broad support across the GOP. The cosponsors are not “all Freedom Caucus members — this is a popular bill regardless of what district you represent,” said Massie. “I pitched it today in the Republican Conference and received applause when I was done. I think if it came to the floor every Republican would vote for it and I think there would be many Democrats who vote for it.”

“Several of the people who were at the shooting are cosponsors of this bill already,” Massie told LifeZette. He also revealed that “I can confirm that at least five of the members who were at the ballfield have concealed carry permits back in their states.”

The fact that these lawmakers were unarmed, despite holding concealed carry permits in their home states, shows the necessity of the legislation, he said. “The shooting happened in Virginia, which is a state that honors out-of-state concealed carry permits, but these members were not carrying weapons because they temporarily reside in D.C.”

“They spent the night before in D.C., and they were going to go back to D.C. after the practice, which is a jurisdiction where virtually no one can carry concealed right now,” Massie said. “Washington, D.C. has issued fewer than 200 concealed carry permits, even though the courts said that they must issue concealed carry permits.”

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According to Massie, the District has regulation that requires an applicant to effectively prove he legitimately fears for his life in order to obtain a concealed carry permit, an entirely subjective abstraction of a measure designed intentionally to keep the number of permit holders incredibly low. “They’re making it so hard to get a concealed carry permit in Washington, D.C., that virtually no one has one,” he said.

But Massie’s legislation would fix that, not only by allowing out-of-state residents to apply for concealed carry permits in D.C., but also by waiving for those residents the requirement that they prove an immediate and legitimate fear for their lives in order to obtain those permits. The legislation would also permit residents in states that don’t require permits for concealed carry — such as Vermont — to apply for D.C. permits.

“I’m not looking for special privileges for members of Congress — I’m looking to reaffirm the right to keep and bear arms for all members of the public,” said Massie.

A spokesperson for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan did not immediately return a request for comment on the legislation.