We wrote about Representative Sheila Jackson Lee’s proposed bill HR 127. You may recall that this would: license firearms; require a mental health test; require purchasing an insurance policy for $800; ban sales to those under 21; ban 50 caliber ammunition and magazines of more than 10 rounds. It is appropriate to review Jackson Lee’s personal expertise on firearms that allowed her to introduce this mammoth gun control bill. (As well as her expertise on anything else.)
In a widely available video, she claims to have had an AR15 in her hands and “It is as heavy as 10 boxes that you might be moving. And the bullet that is utilized, a .50 caliber.” (As most SCOPE members probably know, a loaded AR-15 weighs about 7-9 pounds and does not fire .50 caliber rounds. Do ten loaded moving boxes weigh less than a pound, each?)
After a November 2018 shooting in Thousand Oaks California, she said, ”…this is the 307th mass shooting event of the calendar year”. (Per the FBI’s report on Active Shooter incidents, “The FBI has designated 27 shootings in 2018 as active shooter incidents.” The report defines an active shooter as, “… one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area”.)
She has also said that each day, 92 Americans are victims of gun violence, resulting in more than 33,000 deaths annually. (Ignoring that the majority of these are suicides and victims of drug gangs in our Democrat-controlled cities.)
In a speech before Congress on November 7, 2017, she assured Congress that mass shootings were not because of people with mental health problems but because of guns. (Did the guns have mental health problems? Why is her new bill HR127 requiring mental health exams for gun owners if it’s not a problem?)
She is widely reported as claiming that there have been zero mass shootings stopped by armed civilians in the past 33 years. (What is the definition of “stopped”? Stopped is not the same as “prevented”. If someone shoots a potential mass shooter before they begin, technically a mass shooting never took place and one can’t definitively claim it was stopped - but it was definitely prevented. But if a mass shooting is underway and then stopped by an armed civilian, technically the mass shooting was stopped and further loss of life was prevented; so, she is absolutely wrong. The FBI has an extensive list of mass shootings that were underway but stopped by civilians.)
Jackson Lee has problems with more than just information on guns. History seems to also be a significant challenge.
In 2010, she said, “Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South”. (South Vietnam has not existed since 1975.)
In March 2014, she said, “…how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years operating under a constitution…” (This would date the Constitution – approved in 1789 - back to the Pilgrims. How did George Washington – who was not born until 1732 – manage to become the 1st President more than 100 years before he was born?)
In 1997, while on a trip to the Mars Pathfinder operations center in California, Jackson Lee asked, “Will the Mars rover be able to show the flag the astronauts planted there before”. She was then a member of the House Science Committee.
In 2010 Jackson Lee said that the Klansmen of the past are now Tea Party members. She then criticized Tea Partiers for saying “her braids in her hair were too tight”. (Tea Partiers do have a way with words.)
While speaking at a memorial service for singer Michael Jackson, she held up a copy of her House Resolution 600, which she introduced to honor Michael Jackson. (Her resolution didn’t get enacted. Few members of Congress were eager to mourn a man with a history of allegations of sexual predation on young boys.)
She is a 14 term Congresswoman from Houston, has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Yale and a law degree for the University of Virginia. They must all be proud!
