Click below to listen to Congressman Fulcher give his reaction to the Assault Weapons Ban vote on the Nate Shelman Show. For more on this interview, visit the KBOI website here.
The following transcript was generated using AI for your convenience and may be subject to mistakes
Nate Shellman 0:00
This is the Nate Shellman Show podcast from news talk kboi Boise broadcasting from the Empire title studios. We are our news talk kboi.
Nate Shellman 0:16
You know, for those of you, you can bag on Garden City all you want and talk bad about it, but at least you don’t live in or at least you don’t work in Washington, DC, where Congressman Russ Fulcher is right now, fresh off the vote on House resolution 1808, the assault weapons ban, as it as it has been titled, sir, am I to assume you voted against this?
Rep. Fulcher 0:40
Yes, I did. And as you might be aware, Nate this has kind of been on again off again, because there’s been a lot of questions about whether or not the leadership had the votes to get it passed. But as you may have seen, the tally just came down. 217, yes.
Nate Shellman 0:58
213, no. Interesting part about that was five Democrats who joined the Republicans and two Republicans who joined Democrats, both the majority of Democrats voting against this. That was to be expected, although, wow, not A, not A surprising, overwhelming vote from from all the Democrats. Why did five step over the line? Are they in? Are they in contested
Rep. Fulcher 1:22
districts there. I don’t know who they were, but I do know the five. I’ll look into that. I’m surmising two things. One is that they’re in in tight districts, and so their election this coming November is going to be dependent on their position on this issue. The other is, there, you may have seen some of the debate if you were had C span on there’s there truly is some confusion as to exactly what is included with it. The semiautomatic language appears to be quite broad. And so you could interpret that into a lot of very popular shotguns the magazine requirements, or, yeah, the magazine requirements that were listed can impact a lot of very popular nine millimeter handguns. And so that might have been part of the other reason that they strayed away from their party and
Nate Shellman 2:24
voted no. I was going to say most of the text of the bill as I’m just flipping through it seems to be the different makes, models of the of the weapons in which they tried to be they looks like they tried to include all of them. But I’m I’m having a hard time, just as a member of society, trying to figure out what it is this bill actually does, does, does, does it make them illegal, or does one have to go through a six month waiting period if this were to go no,
Rep. Fulcher 2:53
well, my understanding is because, you know, like, like you were all kind of looking at it very quickly here, but it’s the sale, gifting or loaning of a firearm that fits this particular category. So that also means that you can’t hand it down to your son without a background check and all that kind of thing, or transfer the ownership thereof, whether it’s private or commercial. So here’s the one thing Nate that, I think, that we can probably be assured of, it’s not going to exist in this form over on the Senate side, the Senate is highly likely, I think, to, at a minimum, modify it, if they do anything with it, to have a vote this close in the House going over to a 5050, Senate with language that appears to be as general as it is, at a minimum, it’s going to get modified. It’s going to get amended. May get stopped. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Nate Shellman 3:52
And there’s a there’s also a large appendix of firearms that are exempted by the assault weapons ban of this year. Is that the hope from from Republicans in the in the house, that this is just going to die and either either be held up in committee or just not have the votes to pass, was this one of those on right things?
Rep. Fulcher 4:13
I think so that’s where you’re going to see the the lobbying, if you will, by Republicans members of the House, on the on the Senate, but it’s just the general nature of it. I think, clearly, what the authors were trying to do, they’re trying to to hinder the sale and transfer of the ugly ones, the one that looked nasty they call, say, weapons of war. But an AR 15, really, isn’t it? You know, it’s, it’s, but it looks nasty. That’s what they were trying to do. But they may have inadvertently gone a lot more broad. So this thing is going to get carved up, I think, in some fashion, no matter what
Nate Shellman 4:56
Congressman Russell Fulcher joining us from Washington, DC, and if he sounds. Like he’s out of breath and rush. That’s because there’s actually a vote going on right now, and there were votes yesterday, and there was a vote just moments ago. Kind of busy for a Friday there in Washington, DC. Are we? Are we seeing a lot of money that? Are that that’s getting kind of bootstrapped to to a bill yesterday regarding chip manufacturing, a buyback program is attached to the assault weapons bill, and there is a drought and wildfire bill that’s actually being debated and voted on right now. Are we? We’re seeing a lot of we’re seeing a lot of millions and billions being thrown around this time of year.
Rep. Fulcher 5:35
Yeah, man, we gotta remember this is all money that we don’t have. This is all money that we gotta print and and as you know, when you print it, you also add to inflation. And so this is, this is, in my view, this is, this is bad government practice, but we’re going to see a lot of this between now and the end of the year. We got an election coming up, and those that are currently in charge, part of their strategy is to get as many programs as they can going, and there’s going to be a ton of spending. And so for those of us who are a little bit more on the fiscal conservative side, that’s extremely bothersome, so we’re going to try to stop that. But that’s why they call it the swamp.
Nate Shellman 6:18
I see the vote clock counting down, sir, you’re you’re busy today, but I do appreciate just a couple minutes take take some time for us. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks for letting me share. Nate take care Congressman Russ Fulcher calling us from Washington, DC on the assault weapons ban bill that did pass the House, bipartisan on both sides, with two Republicans voting in favor of it, and which, by the way, pushed it over. The the majority, there was one no vote, but five Democrats joined Republicans in voting against.