“Those guns are coming from the United States of America, they aren’t coming from Mexico … You are reiterating the points of a mass shooter, sir. Sir, you are perpetuating violence,” Hogg said on Tuesday during the committee markup before being escorted out by Capitol security.
Hogg survived the Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018. Seventeen people were killed and seventeen others were wounded in the incident, making it the deadliest high school shooting in US history.
The House committee was debating legislation that would heavily restrict the sale, manufacture, transfer or possession of semiautomatic assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices.
The bill defines as assault weapons a number of firearms, ranging from semiautomatic pistols with a stabilizing brace and unfixed magazine to semiautomatic shotguns with revolving cylinders.
The legislation prohibits the importation or sale of new assault weapons in the US, but grandfathers in existing firearms that meet the definition. However, sale or transfer of grandfathered assault weapons would require a background check by a licensed gun dealer under the bill.