Rep. Harriet Hageman, the Wyoming conservative who defeated Trump-deranged Liz Cheney to go to Washington to actually represent the good people of the Cowboy State has been exceeding expectations ever since she got to DC, but never more so than she did at Monday’s House Judiciary Committee field hearing in New York.
The hearing in New York City was called "Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan" and took aim at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s "pro-crime," "anti-victim" policies. And it had some very compelling and heartrending testimony from the victims of violent crime in New York and the families of New Yorkers who lost their lives to violent crime in the city.
However, the hearing was also a great study in contrasts as Republicans focused on the lenient sentencing of repeat offenders, mental health issues, drug problems and personal motivations of mass killers and other violent criminals, while the Democrat witnesses got up and testified – in so many words – that guns loaded themselves, somehow escaped their owner’s control and every year killed countless Americans, all without any individual responsibility on the part of the person who pulled the trigger.
This was all grins and giggles between the Democrats on the Committee and the anti-gun shills they brought in as witnesses until Rep. Hageman called one of them out.
During her time Rep. Hageman was arguing that the gun violence epidemic was caused by moral decline and suggested that the group New Yorkers Against Gun Violence's executive director wasn’t seriously considering the notion that guns aren’t directly responsible for gun violence.
Rep. Hageman noted that “we're not here for grandstanding” and that “we're recognizing that across the country, there is a sickness pervading our communities that is destroying who and what we are.
“And it's not just about guns.”
It was at that point in which Hageman addressed Fischer.
“I watched you Miss Fischer as you secretly smiled at some of the Congress members on the other side as people on our side talked about the gun issue,” Hageman said.
“I understand you believe that it is an inanimate object that somehow can create or cause the mass shootings, that it's not the individual.
“One of the things that has struck me today is that as we talk about these mass shootings, nobody has talked about the drugs that these people were on. Nobody has talked about the psychology of this.”
Hageman pointed to the March 27 Nashville school shooting that killed six people including three 9-year-old children in which the suspect is identified as a 28-year-old nonbinary person. Audrey Hale identified as a man.
“We just had a woman shoot and kill three young children and three teachers and yet no one has talked about what kind of drugs she may have been taking. What kind of psychosis she was suffering from?
“Clearly, she was suffering from a psychosis. She claimed that she was a boy when she was a girl.
"We have to be looking at those kinds of things. It's not the guns, it's what we're teaching.”
In one short comment Rep. Harriet Hageman nailed practically every point Democrats don’t want to talk about regarding guns and all the rest of our society’s ills. Thank you, Rep. Hageman.
Rep. Harriet Hageman’s Washington, DC office phone is (202) 225-2311. We urge CHQ readers and friends to pick up the phone and call Rep. Hageman’s office to thank her and tell her what a great job she did in New York.
Rep. Harriet Hageman
Wyoming
Liz Cheney
House Judiciary Committee field hearing in New York
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg
Victims of Violent Crime in Manhattan
gun control
crime
drugs
Nashville shooting