'I don’t need statistics': GOP rep. says locking up her guns will not make her children safer

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
April 17, 2023

Victoria Spartz (Photo via AFP)

U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz unleashed a loud anti-gun-control rant during Chairman Jim Jordan‘s field trip to lower Manhattan Monday, where he and his Judiciary Committee held a hearing wrongly alleging violent crime in the nation’s largest city – and the fifth-safest among all of America’s big cities – is out of control, in an effort to attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for prosecuting Donald Trump. The Indiana Republican lawmaker claimed safe storage of guns in the home does not make her or her children safer, then appeared to suggest children and young adults are the main perpetrators of violent crime, while saying schools should be reformed so children can be “taught some values.”

“I just don’t see how am I, how I am and my kids are going to be safer if I lock up my guns,” Rep. Spartz said, referring to safe storage of firearms in the home. A study published in 2020 found 2500 lives could be saved by stricter laws requiring safe firearm storage.

“I just feel actually as a female I feel not as safe,” if her guns were to be locked up, Spartz continued, complaining that she’s unsure how long it would take the police to come to her home.

According to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Indiana, Rep. Spartz’s home state, “has no law that imposes a penalty on someone who fails to secure an unattended firearm and leaves it accessible to an unsupervised minor.” Moms Demand Action adds: “Guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens in Indiana, and an average of 110 children and teens die by guns every year, of which 31% are suicides and 63% are homicides.”

“It’s really strange for me, we tried to take, you know, protection from law-abiding citizens and believe that criminals are not going to get guns?” she said, relying on NRA and right-wing talking points that criminals don’t obey laws.

Spartz then went on to attack children and young adults, suggesting they are the real criminals, as she advocated for tax-payer-funding of private schools.

“Maybe we should reform education and have some wraparound preventive services and have more competition in education [so] that these kids [are] actually taught some values,” she railed, claiming that low reading scores force children into gangs.

“That [they] don’t have a 10% or 8% literacy rate that they have to get into gangs.”

“Is there anything else you can say except ‘gun control’?” she asked, chastising a witness invited by Democrats, and mocking the fact that more guns mean more violent crime.

“So, comprehensive solutions to reducing violence in New York City have actually been incredibly effective,” the witness responded.

“If I set the record straight,” the witness continued despite Spartz talking over her, “because we’ve been talking a lot about statistics, the NYPD’s own data has shown that shootings are down –” she said before Spartz cut her off.

“I think I don’t need statistics,” Spartz declared, cutting off the witness who was trying to answer her question.

Spartz then turned to another witness, totally changing the topic.

“I’m going to talk about child trafficking, human trafficking and drug trafficking [at] the border and cartels,” before claiming that Mexican cartels are trafficking guns, “and now it’s subsidized with taxpayers money.”