Rep. McBath Recounts Wrenching Story of Son’s Shooting Death, Rep. Buck Argues AR-15s Needed to Kill Raccoons at Surreal Gun Hearing

Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) spoke at length during a Judiciary Committee hearing on gun legislation on Thursday and invoked the memory of her son who was shot dead at a gas station following an argument over loud music.

The committee had convened to debate H.R. 7910, known as the “Protecting Our Kids Act,” ahead of a vote to send the legislation, which would increase the age limit to purchase certain guns, to the House floor.

McBath’s emotional plea notably contrasted with some of her Republican colleagues including Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) who showed off his gun collection while speaking remotely and Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) who claimed AR-15s are needed to defend chickens from raccoons.

“Do we have the courage right here in this body to imagine the phone call parents in Uvalde, Texas received last week?” said McBath, who represents suburban Atlanta.

“The phone call that confirms our fear, our singular fear that my child is dead. That I was unable to protect them because I know that phone call,” she added. “Parents across the country know that phone call. It is a sucker punch to my stomach every time I learned there is another phone call.”

“A phone call that brings you to your knees when the desperation will not let you stand. That leaves you gasping for air when the agony will not let you breathe,” McBath continued, adding:

And for days and for months, and for years, you cry out to God in your grief. Was my child afraid? Did he feel the pain as the bullets through his skin? How long did it take them to die? Was it quick or did he suffer?

My son Jordan was only 17 years old when he shot by a man with a gun who didn’t like the loud music that he was playing.

I had dreamed of who he would become. I dreamed of watching him walk across the stage for his graduation filled with excitement for college, hope for his future, and dreams for the world that only a teenager can have.

McBath’s son, Jordan Davis, was murdered in 2012 by Michael David Dunn, a white 45-year-old software developer, who was later found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

“The same racially motivated violence took my son, that murdered 10 black Americans in Buffalo is being replayed with casual callousness and despicable frequency since last week when 19 children were gunned down at their desks,” she continued.

“We have lost over 700 Americans to gun violence. Last night four Americans were murdered as they worked, murdered as they tried to mend, murdered — are we ok with this as a nation?” she asked, referencing the deadly mass shooting at a Tulsa hospital on Wednesday night.

“Is this the status quo that we all accept? What rights do we give our children as we bring them into this world? What rights has God given them as they grow in our homes and hearts? Do we enjoy the right to study in our schools without the fear of massacre? Do our children have the right to live free from the trauma that only stepping over our friends covered in blood could ever bring,” she continued, adding:

Do parents enjoy the right to drop their kids off at school and expect to see them come home? Do we as a nation have a God-given right to live free from this scourge of gun violence, of senseless suffering, of death and despair?

Because we cannot keep doing this. An entire generation of children are learning that the adults they look up to cannot or will not protect them.

We all agree that the status quo is unacceptable. We understand the murder of our children cannot continue and we have resolutions that the majority of the American people believe in. They are commonsense compromises that will keep American children alive. solutions to protect our kids, to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them, to stop our neighbors from being slaughtered in our schools, churches, and supermarkets.

Throughout this nation’s history, our elected leaders have risen to the task. We have the opportunity to do this again right now as a nation. To do the right thing and address this moment in history. Because this is the time right now. This is the moment. It may be the only moment that we have.

We are facing the challenge of our lifetime and this is the issue of our era. We must summon the courage to do what is right, the courage to protect our kids and the courage, my God, we have to have the courage to protect America.

McBath’s remarks were followed by other members of the Judiciary Committee, including Colorado Rep.  Buck (R-CO) – who struck a very different tone.

Buck argued that “we have a serious problem involving family, involving drugs, involving mental health in this country and we have gone in the wrong direction the last 40 or 50 years, we have become a less safe society generally.”

Rep. Ken Buck: “Blaming the gun for what’s happening in America is small minded … in rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before the get to our chickens.” pic.twitter.com/nWmcJsqcBp

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 2, 2022

“Blaming the gun for what’s happening in America is small-minded,” he added, lamenting the political divides in the country. “In rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens, it is a gun of choice for killing a fox,” he argued.

Buck concluded by saying the idea “we would deny access” to the AR-15 makes absolutely no sense and is “unfortunate.”

Watch the full hearing above

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