DC Attorney General, US Capitol Police, Regional Law Enforcement, & Emergency Management Officials
D.C. Attorney General, U.S. Capitol Police, and Regional Law Enforcement and Emergency Management
Officials Warn Gun Amendment Could Hinder Police from Preventing a Major Attack
April 3, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today dedicated a committee hearing examining the impact that a proposed gun amendment to the D.C. House Voting Rights Act would have on homeland security in the National Capital Region and public safety in the District to Loree Murray, 88, an anti-crime community leader who also championed D.C. statehood and D.C. voting rights. "You must understand this. We are going to get the D.C. House Voting Rights Act passed this year, and this amendment is already in the Senate bill. So, if we pass it here, we [must] face, head-on, what it would mean for the nation's capital to have no gun laws as the Ensign gun amendment would require," the Congresswoman said during the hearing before the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management. "Before us today is whether appointed and elected federal officials, employees, visitors and the federal presence would be more or less secure under the Ensign gun amendment, which would allow military style weapons, including .50 caliber armor-piercing guns to be legally possessed, without limit on the number, in the nation's capital." The hearing also examined other issues concerning homeland security and emergency readiness in the region.
Norton was joined by federal and District officials in law enforcement and emergency management, who said that the proposed gun amendment could "triple" gun purchases and increase gun violence in the region, and hamstring District and U.S. Capitol police, considering that the region is a prime target. District of Columbia Attorney General Peter Nickels, who testified when D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier was called away on a family emergency, said since District officials have enacted new gun laws that fully comply with the Supreme Court's Heller v. District of Columbia decision, 400 hand guns and 160 long guns have been registered. The proposed gun amendment, however, would repeal all of the District's gun laws, eliminating a layer needed to protect elected and appointed federal officials and visitors, according to U.S. Capitol Police Assistant Chief Daniel Nichols, who testified when U.S. Capitol Police Chief Phillip D. Morse had to be out of town.
The Congresswoman urged Congress to read the dangerous amendment before undoing all the work the region has done to shore up homeland security since the region was hit on 9/11. "No one has read the bill," Norton said. "We're about to vote blindly against the billions of dollars we have invested in homeland security."
The Congresswoman said that she will continue to work with House leadership, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Democratic Progressive Caucus, and a strong block of "Blue Dog" conservatives to bring a clean bill to the floor. Norton hopes to protect the region and the District, once and for all, in the face of continuing National Rifle Association attempts to undermine homeland security and public safety in the nation's capital.
The Congresswoman's full statement is attached.
I welcome today's witnesses to this hearing concerning an important mission of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the jurisdiction of our subcommittee. But for this morning's hearing, I would be attending the funeral of Loree Murray, a gentle soul who became a beacon of resistance to gun violence when crack and the crack wars gripped the District in the 1990's. An indication of Mrs. Murray's success as a citizen anti-crime activist is that before I arrived at the viewing and wake last night, I am told, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier was in attendance. Mrs. Murray was also such a statehood and voting rights advocate that her family placed her Free D.C. cap in her casket. Considering that an important part of what concerns us at today's hearing is a new firearms' risk posed by a dangerous gun amendment proposed for the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act, I told Mrs. Murray's family and friends last night that I wanted to dedicate today's hearing to Loree Murray.
Today, we are pleased to welcome federal and District law enforcement officials, emergency managers and first responders to testify concerning steps to prevent, prepare for and respond, as necessary, to incidents of all types. FEMA is the lead federal agency charged with preparing for and responding to disasters and emergencies of all types. When Congress established the DHS shortly after 9/11, the statute that created it also established a special Office of National Capital Region Coordination (NCRC), now placed in FEMA. Our region faces many of the same risks as any other major area of our country, from natural disasters, such as the 2001 floods in the Bloomingdale section of the District of Columbia, to man-made disasters, such as the tragic plane crash into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The nation's capital occupies a special place in the nation's security network, with the District ranking in the top four areas at risk for terrorist threats along with New York, Chicago and San Francisco. However, the challenges of responding to threats in the seat of the federal government are unique and, as a result, Congress established the NCRC, the only regional office inside DHS charged specifically with coordinating security for one region alone.
The unique nature of the national capital region brings distinct challenges for the region and its officials. For example, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) must work with no less than 32 federal police agencies, and MPD, the largest police force in the region, is an indispensible part of the federal security for the nation's capital and for the National Capital Region.
The recent inauguration, the largest event ever held in the nation's capital, with an estimated two million people in attendance, including foreign dignitaries, entertainment stars and virtually every important federal and state official in the United States, is perhaps the quintessential example of what makes the work of elected officials, police and security officials in our nation's capital uniquely difficult. Although hearings have been held concerning some problems at the 2009 inauguration, such as citizens who were held in the Third Street Tunnel, it is noteworthy that there was not a single arrest at the National Mall, notwithstanding the unprecedented crowds and the disappointments of some concerning admission. The Third Street Tunnel problems are among those that will be studied by the Government Accountability Office, with a report and recommendation to come. However, Mayor Adrian Fenty, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier, Metro, Capitol Police and the DHS agencies involved, including the lead agency, the U.S. Secret Service, deserve credit for the planning and operations that resulted in what most agree was an unusually successful event. Although the problems that arose require study, we are also interested in how the federal and District agencies, in cooperation with the region, pulled off an event the size of which was unlike anything they had seen before and how they were able to keep it up for the four days of the engagement.
Since 9/11, this region has had notable success working together to shore up unique risks to homeland security here. Millions of dollars have been spent not only to repair the Pentagon, where 184 people were lost, but to fortify Metro against the unique vulnerabilities of the national capital region, with its porous borders, 14 million people, 50,000 federal employees and national and foreign dignitaries that pose security risks as they move, often in motorcades, throughout the national capital region.
No risk is more apparent to homeland security in particular than the widespread availability of firearms.
While the City was in the act of writing new legislation last summer, the National Rifle Association forced a number of Democratic members of the House during the primaries just before the 2008 election to demand an up or down vote on a bill to eliminate all gun laws in the District of Columbia and to strip the District of Columbia of all its public safety gun enforcement. That bill is essentially the same as the Ensign amendment now attached to the District of Columbia House Voting Rights legislation passed by the Senate in February. Despite hearings and testimony from federal and D.C. police chiefs that the gun posed a "grave threat" to elected and appointed federal officials and visitors, in addition to D.C. residents, the gun bill passed the House on the belief that it could be stopped in the Senate, and we were able to do so. However, despite the hearings, almost no one here had ever looked at the gun bill itself. They were focused on not doing harm to members from more conservative districts.
Now, with the Ensign amendment attached to the voting rights bill in the Senate, the time has come to look the Ensign bill straight in the eyes. The Congress has largely regarded the amendment as another piece of local legislation. However, federal police must operate largely under the District's gun laws and have testified that these gun laws have been critical to homeland security. Today, we intend to face head on what it would mean for the nation's capital to have no local gun laws. We must ask whether the gun laws, as the Washington Post recently noted, "protecting the lives of D.C. residents as well as those of tourists and foreign dignitaries, national leaders, and the president and his family" should be eliminated. Before us today is whether appointed and elected federal officials, employees, visitors and the federal presence would be more or less secure under the Ensign amendment, which would allow military style weapons, including .50 caliber armor piercing guns, to be legally possessed, without limit on the numbers, in the nation's capital; would make the nation's capital the only jurisdiction permitting, indeed inviting, people to be able to cross state lines to purchase guns and bring them back from the two nearby states, facilitating gun running by criminals, felons or terrorists between the states in the national capital region; would create a "gun show loophole" without any background checks of any kind, permitting the purchase of weapons from private individuals at gun shows would eliminate no gun registration and therefore there would be no way for police to trace guns used in crimes; would deprive the District of all gun safety jurisdiction to revise its laws for the safety of residents and visitors, even if serious threats arise; and would permit any employee to bring a gun, concealed or openly, to any workplace in the city. Employees could bring guns to a Wizards game at the Verizon Center, to a National's baseball game at Nationals Park, to a national conference at the Convention Center, to Pepco headquarters, to law offices, and to other small and large workplaces throughout the city, to churches and other places of worship, to bars, restaurants and nightclubs, to hotels, to power plants and to all District government offices.
In short, would elected and appointed federal officials, foreign dignitaries, visitors, and District residents be more secure with or without the Ensign Amendment? Asked another way, what is to be gained by the Ensign amendment?
The time to ask these questions is now, not after there is blowback and recriminations following serious gun carnage affecting residents or federal officials and employees. Our job is to prevent, not only to protect.
Today's hearing of course will focus not only on this most recent and most serious threat to homeland security since 9/11, but also on all the steps that have been taken to protect homeland security by the District of Columbia National Guard, DHS, FEMA, the US. Capitol Police, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Police, the D.C. Attorney General, Prince George's County Office of the County Executive, the Washington Hospital Center, and the American Red Cross. Yet, the hearing is likely to be remembered most by whether we in Congress, with a clear threat in plain sight now on the voting rights bill, did what was required to protect the nation's capital and the national capital region. We are deeply grateful to today's witnesses for their testimony.