After nearly being the victim of a mass shooting two years ago, Georgia Congressman Barry Loudermilk says he’s been asked frequently about whether he would support more stringent gun control legislation at the federal level.
“I’m a survivor,” Loudermilk says in reference to the attempted assassination of Republicans in June 2017 at a Congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Va.
A gunman who supported Democratic presidential candidate and Sen. Bernie Sanders opened fire with a military-style weapon, seriously wounding then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and five others before being shot by U.S. Capitol Police.
During the 10-minute shootout, Loudermilk took cover behind an SUV, and figures he was shot at around 20 times by the gunman, who later died and was identified as James Hodgkinson.
“He knew what he was doing,” said Loudermilk, recalling the incident as the guest speaker at the East Cobb Business Association luncheon on Tuesday. “He didn’t have mental health issues. He was radicalized.
“And there wasn’t a single thing we could have done to change that.”
Law enforcement later found that Hodgkinson had left behind some strident social media messages against President Donald Trump and was particularly upset about Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare.
“He had no respect for the law,” Loudermilk said about the shooter. “He intended to commit mass murder.”
In light of recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, Loudermilk still believes federal legislation won’t properly address issues of gun violence and mass shootings.
“We have a cultural crisis and a moral crisis in this country,” said Loudermilk, a third-term Republican from Cartersville who represents the 11th Congressional District of Georgia that includes part of Cobb County.
“There’s nothing that we in Washington can do about that.”
He made his remarks in the 6th District, where first-term Marietta Democrat Lucy McBath narrowly won last November with a strict gun-control message. McBath’s son was shot and killed by a motorist at a Florida gas station, sparking her activism.
She’s been a sponsor of federal background check and related legislation, and secured $50 million in federal funding for the Centers for Disease Control to study the effects of gun violence.
But Loudermilk says background check measures and “red-flag” proposals—in which law enforcement can confiscate guns from those considered to be a a danger to others or themselves—will be more effective at the state and local levels.
A total of 15 states have such red-flag laws, but Georgia is not one of them.
‘The George Patton of presidents’
In wake of the attempted shootings that affected him, Loudermilk has called for greater civility in American life, and not just politics.
He said that given the “unusual time” in the country, and especially in Washington, he’s also asked a lot about a figure who’s at the center of much of that divisive rhetoric—Trump.
“He says some things that I wish he would say differently,” Loudermilk said of the president. “I don’t always like the way he does things. But I try to judge Trump by what he is actively doing.”
Loudermilk says he thinks that Trump—”the George Patton of presidents”—will go down as an effective president, and that his “shock and awe” approach is part of the reason why.
On the subject of the Mueller Report—an investigation into alleged Russian government influence on the influence American elections—Loudermilk is certain the 2016 Trump campaign didn’t act in collusion, as many of the president’s opponents still believe.
“If he had colluded with the Russians,” Loudermilk said of Trump, “he would have already bragged about it.”
The Trump Administration’s renegotiating trade policy with China includes the threat of tariffs because, Loudermilk said, “that is the stick he has to use.”
He said the benefits of tax cuts in 2017 pushed by the White House are continuing to boost the economy. While some changes had to be made to address the concerns of small-business owners, Loudermilk said “I want to think it’s because it’s nothing we did. We got out of the way, so you can do what you do.”
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