According to reports, the joint subcommittee hearing was interrupted by 55-year-old Manuel Oliver, whose son was killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. According to Capitol Police, he was arrested in the Rayburn House Office Building when he “disrupted and refused to stop shouting, and then attempted to go back into the hearing room.”
Oliver was previously removed from a White House lawn ceremony celebrating a gun control measure when he shouted at President Joe Biden.
A citation release arrest was performed, meaning Oliver was not taken into custody but given a date to appear in court. In a statement, Capitol Police said, “Anyone who disrupts a Congressional hearing and disregards a law enforcement officer’s orders to stop” will be arrested.
Oliver and his wife Patricia were both removed from the hearing room. They founded the gun control group Change the Ref after their son Joaquin was murdered in the Parkland tragedy.
The Thursday incident began when Patricia Oliver began heckling Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), as the representative argued that lowering the number of firearms or strengthening gun restrictions will not produce less gun fatalities.
Fallon and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) called for her removal as she continued, and a recess was declared. Patricia Oliver told the legislators that “you took my son away from me.”
After Manuel Oliver was apprehended outside the room, Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL) appeared to praise the outburst. This brought a stern reproach from Fallon. “To be that disruptive, and to be that narcissistic, to breach decorum…shouldn’t be applauded. And it sure as hell shouldn’t be applauded by members of this committee.”
The committee heard from members who support the ATF. These representatives argued that the sweeping changes by the controversial agency made children safer.
Opponents of the ATF focused their presentations on the agency’s reversal of the pistol stabilizing brace rule. This drastic measure could mean millions of Americans will instantly become felons with the shift in definition of pistols that feature these add-ons.
The about-face on stabilizer braces is drawing intense scrutiny by the House. Momentum is building towards blocking the administration’s new rules, which are described as a “abuse” of federal might.
The change means that the ATF will classify any firearm with a stabilizing brace as a short-barreled rifle. Now they will require a federal license to own under the National Firearms Act.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in the days before the hearing called for Congress to withhold funding from the ATF. Chairman Alan Gottlieb said this week that a message needs to be sent from Congress to the agency being unleashed on upstanding U.S. citizens.
He declared the White House has repeatedly made public its goal of prohibiting “modern semiautomatic rifles and 9mm pistols, the most popular firearms in the nation.” Gottlieb noted that millions of law-abiding Americans use these weapons for “home defense, competition, predator control, recreational shooting, and hunting, and they have never harmed anyone.”
He added that the pistols provide personal protection for millions of men and women.
It is refreshing to see lawmakers stand up for federal protection of Second Amendment rights. The ATF deserves intense scrutiny for its actions to suppress these liberties, and it certainly does not need to be supersized as the current 2024 budget proposal plans.
The House committee disruption was unfortunate, though the actions of grieving parents are certainly understandable. The placement of blame on gun control laws, however, is misguided.
