Utah Rep. Rob Bishop announced on Wednesday the issuance of a letter from himself and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte demanding answers from Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp for last year’s executive order authorizing the seizure of guns and ammunition before the arrival of Hurricane Irma.
The order, issued in September 2017 and renewed several times since, allows the National Guard to seize firearms and ammunition from ordinary citizens, and uses a “state of emergency” as its premise.
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Although the order’s text explicitly authorizes the seizures, in a December 2017 phone interview with The Daily Caller, Mapp said the National Guard is “not authorized to take arms and munitions from civilians,” and called those who say that’s not the case “foolish.” (RELATED: US Virgin Islands Governor Renews Gun, Ammunition Seizure Order)
Rep. Bishop talked about the letter on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
“It ought not to happen. Ironically enough after Katrina hit in New Orleans, the mayor tried to do that same kind of executive order, and eventually the courts ruled that was blatantly unconstitutional,” Rep. Bishop told host Tucker Carlson. “This is the question. And the governor has said different things about it. He did issue the order that would’ve allowed them to confiscate the weapons and ammunition and it says also other property, although I don’t know how you define that one. But he’s also said he never intended to do it. This is a way of the National Guard getting ammunition and guns without using the normal procurement system. I don’t know what that means.”
“Our committee and we are sending a letter with Chairman Goodlatte from the Judiciary committee asking them for some documentation and the information to find out if any guns actually have been seized at any time and number two why in the hell would you make this order in the first place and then why would you keep renewing it? He’s renewed it six different times well after the danger is gone there, and third trying to realize … if [hurricane danger] ever justifies the denial of a civil liberty or the denial of a constitutional right.”
“That’s exactly the moment when you need a gun, when lunatics are preying on the weak,” said Carlson.
“That’s one of the purposes of why the Second Amendment. It’s not about hunting. It’s not about collection. It’s an individual right to self defense,” said Bishop.
View the letter below:
View the letter here. https://t.co/fknzJtGESg
— Alex Pfeiffer (@PfeifferDC) July 19, 2018