Former Congressman Trey Gowdy, a Republican who represented South Carolina, said over the weekend on Fox News he is willing to “subrogate any of my other rights to avoid another Sandy Hook.”
Gowdy made his case by linking guns and gun rights to the right to life, which he described as “the most fundamental, basic, primary right that we have.”
“It doesn’t matter if have a right to a lawyer if you’re dead. It doesn’t matter if you have the right to free speech if you’re dead,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you have the right to keep and bear arms if you’re dead.”
Gowdy made the comments on the heels of two mass shootings, one in El Paso, which has, so far, resulted in 22 deaths, and another in Dayton, Ohio, which killed nine people.
The Fox News commentator made clear he has no intention of going back to Washington, D.C., and urged politicians in office now to ensure the laws currently on the books are being fully enforced.
“If the answer is ‘yes,’ and we still have gaps in our laws that need to be fixed — keep in mind you don’t have a single right for which there’s not some corresponding responsibility or restriction,” Gowdy explained. “Every right you have has a restriction. So if we need more restrictions, then draw the causal, scientific link between what you’re proposing and what you hope to be the outcome.”
He did, however, warn against rushing to pass laws that would not actually be preventative. Doing so, Gowdy said, “is a panacea” that gives only the impression of a workable solution.
“Show me a law to prevent the next Sandy Hook and sign me up as a husband and a father,” he added. “Show me the law and sign me up, and I will give up any other right I have.”