Norton Blasts Paul for Flaunting Bill to Eliminate D.C.’s Gun Laws at Same Time as White House Shooting Incident

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today blasted Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) for touting his bill to wipe out all of the District of Columbia’s gun safety laws at the same time an armed gunman had to be shot by the U.S. Secret Service outside of the White House. Paul, who mentioned his anti-local-control bill while speaking at a National Rifle Association (NRA) event yesterday, tried but failed several times to move his anti-home-rule gun bill through the Senate last year. In a transparent effort to cozy up to the NRA, Paul also recollected his introduction of an amendment in 2012 to eliminate the city’s local gun safety laws that effectively kept a Senate bill to grant D.C. budget autonomy from moving out of committee.

“What kind of senator tries to earn his stripes by interfering with local control elsewhere while his own constituents wait for him to bring home something for them?” Norton said. “The nonsense of Senator Paul’s compulsive more-guns-in-D.C. efforts was demonstrated this week when a U.S. Secret Service officer had to take down a man wielding a gun outside the White House. Imagine the impossible burden on the Secret Service, our other federal police forces, and D.C. police if this were a capital that had almost no gun safety laws while controversial international and national figures and the most highly-placed U.S. officials—including senators—frequent our public places and streets. Senator Paul’s disregard for these realities is inexcusable for a federal official. Particularly shameful, though, is Senator Paul’s willful override of his own self-proclaimed federalist and libertarian principles to interfere with another Member’s jurisdiction on a serious life and death public safety matter. Moreover, a senator who brags about using federal power to keep a local jurisdiction from controlling its own locally-raised funds has lost his credibility as a libertarian.

“As it is, the District has a high rate of fatalities from guns, almost all of them brought from outside the District of Columbia. Disrespect for our own local citizens and disdain for human life in the District of Columbia dishonors the senator’s office. News flash, Senator Paul: almost 700,000 American citizens live in the District of Columbia. Stop grandstanding at the expense of the citizens who I, not you, represent.”