Congresswoman Hits Back At Republican For Derailing White Supremacy Hearing With Questions About Chicago Violence
Democratic Congresswoman Robin Kelly of Illinois delivered a withering rebuttal when Republican Chip Roy tried to derail a hearing on white supremacy by bringing up gun violence in Chicago.
On Friday, the Joint National Security and Civil Rights Civil Liberties Subcommittee held part three of a hearing entitled “Confronting Violent White Supremacy: Addressing the Transnational Terrorist Threat.”
The hearing featured expert witnesses — Dr. Kathleen Belew, Assistant Professor of U.S.History at the College, The University of Chicago; Dr. Joshua Geltzer, Director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, and Ms. Katrina Mulligan, Managing Director for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress — and conservative activist Candace Owens, who infamously defended Hitler and was cited in a white supremacist mass shooter’s manifesto.
In order to understand the white supremacist threat, Rep. Roy decided to ask Owens about gun violence in Chicago.
“Ms. Owens, I wanted your perspective on this, some of the numbers are pretty astounding, right?” Roy said. “I mean we’ve had 300 and something murders in Chicago this year, the number varies, changes literally by the day, sadly and tragically.”
“I’m looking at some day here, I don’t know if it’s 100% accurate, but black victims of murders are 291 murders in Chicago, just this year alone,” he continued, adding “And you can go through different data points, black homicide victimization, I’ve got a stat here, 13% of the US population yet 51% of homicide victims, can you speak a little bit about that, and about the reality of that and some of the policies that lead to that?”
Owens delivered her response, and then the chair recognized Rep. Kelly for her questions.
“Before I ask my questions, I just have to make a comment about where I represent, Chicago,” Kelly said, and pointed out that one major reason for gun violence in Chicago is “because we don’t have the laws that we need.”
“Chicago, people like to say ‘Oh they have strong gun laws,’ but most of our guns don’t come from Chicago,” Kelly added. “It’s because of a lack of national trafficking laws, straw purchasing, we can’t even get a background law pass, so I just want to clear the record there.”
“I’ve been here going into my 7th year, and it’s been very difficult to get any legislation passed about gun violence, yes Chicago has a strong laws, but no one else around us does, the majority of our crime guns come from Indiana and Wisconsin, and until we pass some national laws to deal with this, their are going to be those issues,” Kelly said.
According to the most recent data, almost 60 percent of crime guns recovered in Chicago come from outside the state, and as Kelly noted, Indiana tops the list.
Watch the clip above, via Fox News.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
