Almost two years after surviving a shooting at a congressional baseball practice, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise is continuing to advocate for Second Amendment rights.
The Republican congressman opposes gun control, even after the Republican congressional baseball practice during which he was personally wounded by a bullet back in 2017, leaving nerve damage in his left leg.
On Friday, at the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) annual event in Indiana, Scalise reiterated his commitment to standing up for Americans’ right to bear arms.
“We need a strong 2nd Amendment so we can defend ourselves and our families from criminals and others who want to do us harm,” Scalise posted on Twitter, along with the video of his experience coming face-to-face with gun violence.
He explained how his personal experience with gun violence only strengthened his “deep-rooted beliefs” on Second Amendment rights, Scalise told the crowd at the NRA event.
“Our rights do not come to us from some Supreme Court judge. Our rights don’t come to us from Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer. Our rights come to us from God, not lawmakers. It’s God who gave us our rights. Our Founding Fathers believed in that. […] When people try to take away our foundational understanding that this was a nation founded under God, we always have to fight to defend that because that’s the core of what they’re trying to do to take away and undermine our values, is take away the understanding that this was a nation rooted in the belief of God.” he stated.
Speaking of his personal experience, Scalise remembered that he laid on the ballfield and could hear the gunshots fireing from further away.
Then he crawled into the outfield, where he found himself praying to God about “some pretty heavy things” — one of them being that his daughter Madison wouldn’t walk down the aisle without her father. Additionally, he prayed to see his family once again.
Scalise continued to say that “this unbelievable sense of calm that came over me because I put it in God’s hands, and he took care of me.”
He also gave praise to law enforcement for their service “because they provide a valuable service and they’re not thanked enough.” He added, “They were there for all of us that day, and they are true American heroes.”
The Republican lawmaker thanked “incredible patriot” President Trump and his administration for putting “good people on the Supreme Court who understand it’s their job to interpret the Constitution as it’s written not rewrite it in the vein of their desires.”
