February 21, 2013

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) says constituents are telling him that high-capacity magazines should not be banned because people need "at least 50 rounds" to shoot down government drones.

During Thursday interview on Freedom 107 radio, host Jeff Akin asked the Texas Republican how he felt about using unnamed aerial drones for domestic law enforcement.

"It's pretty offensive to most of us," Gohmert opined. "Most of us think if you're going to use a drone and fly over our homes to analyze what's going on in our backyard -- not a lot of talk's been given -- but if you can fly over in the backyard, you can use all kinds of technology to see what's happening inside the home as well. And I know there's been a judge, and this former judge sure thinks you ought to have a warrant to do that kind of thing."

"But I had somebody last week in Washington from either Georgia or Alabama that was saying, 'Look, this goes back to we have got to have at least 50 rounds in our magazines because on average that's about how many it takes to bring down a drone.' I hope he was kidding, I don't know for sure."

"It is serious when the government decides, let's just watch every little thing Americans are doing," he added. "It's big brother taken to a whole new scale."

While they were on the topic of guns and the Second Amendment, Akin also wondered what bills liberals were planning "that could violate that amendment."

"They want the elimination of firearms in America," Gohmert declared. "Some of them have the idea that the Second Amendment was there to allow hunting, not true. You know, it is for our protection -- and the Founders' quotes make that very clear -- including against a government that could run amuck."

"You know, we've got some people who think that Sharia law ought to be the law of the land, forget the Constitution," he asserted. "But the guns are there, that Second Amendment is there to make sure all the rest of the amendments are followed."

Gohmert said that he understood the emotional nature of the issue because one of his friends had lost a husband due to gun violence, but he insisted that "we've got to let our head be what prevails."

"Sometime when you run in with your heart, you make bad laws."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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