Washington, D.C. (March 4, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lucy McBath, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance, and subcommittee Democrats condemned Republican efforts to dismantle proven gun safety laws and make communities less safe.
The hearing included testimony from: Greg Jackson, Former Deputy Director, the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention; Doug Ritter, Founder and Chair, Knife Rights, Inc. and the Knife Rights Foundation; Dianna Muller, Founder, Women for Gun Rights; and Dave McDermott, Criminal defense attorney and Founder, McDermott Law Group.
Subcommittee Democrats explained how the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) and recent Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rules contributed to a historic decrease in gun violence across the nation while respecting Americans’ constitutional rights.
Ranking Member Raskin noted that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and other commonsense regulations implemented by the Biden Administration “saved thousands of lives, contributing to 3,500 fewer murders between 2023 and 2024, without ever once infringing on the Second Amendment. We know this because the Supreme Court never invalidated any part of the Bipartisan Safe Communities Act or any other Biden Administration gun safety regulation as a violation of the Second Amendment. These measures have all been deemed constitutional.”
Mr. Jackson said, “We knew that gun violence is about more than just solving a crime. It’s about preventing a health crisis. And so, we looked at strategies to help victims heal, investing in the Crime Victims Fund, in VOCA [the Victims of Crime Act], investing in violence intervention programs and law enforcement crime intelligence strategy.”Ranking Member Raskin asked, “Were any of those things struck down as violative of anybody’s Second Amendment rights?” Mr. Jackson confirmed, “No.” Ranking Member Raskin continued, “So, why isn’t everybody celebrating across the aisle that we actually saved thousands of lives through the things the Biden Administration did without violating anybody’s Second Amendment rights?”
Subcommittee Democrats made clear that Republicans want to make us less safe by allowing dangerous people easier access to firearms, with American lives on the line.
Ranking Member McBath asked, “The Trump White House shuttered the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. What work won’t happen as a result of that?” Mr. Jackson explained, “Well, there’s no longer a team that’s focused every day on getting the resources to life-saving strategies. We talked about domestic violence, but one of our jobs was pushing over $450 million to states to help them implement strategies to remove firearms from domestic abusers. But now without our office there to oversee the dollars getting to the communities that need it, implementing and expediting laws or executive actions, frankly processes will be slowed and unfortunately lives will be lost.”
In response to a question from Rep. Dan Goldman on the potential public safety consequences of gutting ATF, Mr. Jackson explained, “We would lose the ability to federally enforce rogue gun dealers, to focus on disrupting problematic iron pipelines, to prosecute gun traffickers. It would greatly handicap our background check system and our ability to identify and frankly deny dangerous sales of firearms. And most importantly, it will strip us of the ability to look out for emerging threats. We know that there are things like Glock switches and innovations that are happening every day that are making weapons more deadly.”
Subcommittee Democrats highlighted why we must build on our progress and do more to prevent gun violence.
Rep. Eric Swalwell said, “A lot of moms lost their children in many of the mass shootings conducted with assault weapons over the last 10 years. So, I would like to ask, what was the self-defense in Aurora where 12 people were killed? What was the self-defense in Newtown, where 26 people were killed, most of them babies, little kids? […] What was the self-defense? When most parents hear that, that there’s a right to self-defense, they say, my kids have a right to go home. […] Do you think [children] feel protected by this hearing, by putting into our streets and our communities the most dangerous weapons so they can go into the hands of the most dangerous people? It doesn’t protect anybody.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz told the story of how Florida enacted a bipartisan gun violence prevention law following the mass shooting in his community of Parkland, Fl., and explained that there is a balance between protecting Americans’ constitutional rights and keeping people safe from gun violence: “They saw what was happening. They saw an epidemic, and they don’t want to take people’s guns away […] They did the right thing because there is a balance. This idea that there is no balance I reject, and Florida proved that absolutely wrong.”
In response to a question from Ranking Member McBath on what more can be done to support state and local law enforcement, Mr. Jackson explained, “We have to continue to invest and resource them. We had a round table with President Biden and police chiefs from across the country, and the number one thing that they said supported their work was having true community partners. And that’s where investments in community violence intervention and victim services played a huge role in ensuring that it’s not just law enforcement trying to solve this problem, that we have health departments and doctors and community organizations and schools and principals all equipped with tools and resources to prevent violence before it happens. So, we have to keep building on that. We have to strengthen the full ecosystem that’s working together to keep our community safe. And we can do that by passing the Office of Gun Violence Act that will create an office beyond the White House, but also just protecting those important investments through the appropriations process.”
Ranking Member McBath said: “We know that we are still losing far too many lives to gun violence, violent crime, and suicide. But the solution is clear—we must continue the progress of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and build on it. Our colleagues want to take us back to a time where there were more guns in our communities that might end up in the hands of people who should not have them. But we know what is at stake, and that is American lives. At the end of a long day, we all just want our loved ones to come home safely.”
