House lawmakers will now be required to pass through metal detectors to enter the Chamber following last week’s siege on the U.S. Capitol building by the president’s supporters.
“Effective immediately, all persons, including Members, are required [to] undergo security screening when entering the House Chamber,” Acting House Sergeant at Arms Timothy Blodgett said in a memo on Tuesday. “Failure to complete screening or the carrying of prohibited items could result in denial of access to the Chamber.”
The metal detectors were installed less than a week after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday in protest to lawmakers certifying electoral votes stating President-elect Joe Biden had won November’s election. At least five people died in connection to the siege, including a Capitol police officer who was physically confronted by protesters and a woman who was shot by an officer after having breached the building.
The memo from Blodgett also states lawmakers who carry weapons must keep them in their personal offices.
Grace Meng, a New York House Democrat, said the metal detectors won’t do much to prevent a future riot “but it’s actually to help protect us from our own colleagues.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., responded to the new measure with a question on Twitter.
“Are you kidding me?”
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who appeared in a campaign video carrying a gun around the Capitol, said in a statement to CNN that the installation of metal detectors is a “political stunt” that “does nothing to improve the safety of Members in the Capitol complex.”
“It’s a shame that Nancy Pelosi is trying to disarm Members of Congress in the very place that needed more protection on Jan. 6,” she said. “It is clear metal detectors would not have deterred the violent acts we saw.”
Firearms are prohibited in Washington, D.C., and on U.S. Capitol grounds even with a carry permit though law enforcement officers may be admitted into Capitol buildings with a firearm if they are “engaged in the performance of their official duties and meet certain established criteria,” the U.S. Capitol Police website said.
Earlier this month, new House rules were unveiled that maintained the lawmakers’ exemption from the gun prohibition.
Twenty-one Democrats in December had sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., asking her to bar members of Congress from carrying firearms on Capitol grounds as “the current regulations create needless risk.”
Boebert responded with a letter signed by 82 Congress members, stating, “if Members can’t carry on Capitol grounds, they can’t protect themselves in D.C. while making their way to and from their offices to perform their official duties.”
The memo from Blodgett also makes mask wearing in the Chamber mandatory after several lawmakers contracted COVID-19 after sheltering in close confines with Republican colleagues who refused to abide by the health precaution.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, who announced Monday that she contracted COVID-19 after sheltering with maskless lawmakers during the siege, has called for those who refuse to wear masks in the Capitol to be fined and removed by the sergeant at arms.
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Enter the Pelosi and Schumer era of fear, suspicion and anxiety, bred to control THE PEOPLE but end up controlling themselves. Fear indeed makes for a poor life partner, and one that is unfit for strong self-governing Americans to keep company with. The Guilt of the Democrat party is revealed in every oppressive move they make to protect themselves from their sins, disguised as attempts to protect WE THE PEOPLE from ourselves, who they failed miserably in fake Impeachments. Last time I looked metal detectors cannot detect plastic guns nor plastic explosives, even if House Speakers are rife with plastic surgery and Botox, brain migrated faces. No metal detector can stop a mob of 100,000 angry peasants with pitchforks, angered by DEMOCRATS in division.
Nancy and Chucky are acting more and more like frighten guilt ridden actors in a Hitlerian “Operation Valkyrie” moment where National Socialist Hitler dodged the bomb, but not the following fear that drove him mad and suspicious of anyone assigned to his security as a potential assassin. These fearful disgraceful Congressmen can head for and operate out of their Congressional Fuhrer Bunkers all they wish, but when the walls begin to close in, they better keep their pet German Shepherds around to try out the poison pills to see if they work on themselves, as well as they did when attached to their government bills.
The focus of any analysis of moral panic is;
“Whether an issue is distorted and exaggerated in such a way as to produce an obvious over-reaction on the part of social and political authorities.” Yes we are being played
Get the book
COVID-19 The Politics of a Pandemic Moral Panic Paperback – November 27, 2020
by Barry Cooper PhD (Author), Marco Navarro-Génie PhD (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/COVID-19-Politics-Pandemic-Moral-Panic/dp/098789546X/ref=sr_1_1?
The focus of any analysis of moral panic is whether an issue is distorted and exaggerated in such a way as to produce an obvious over-reaction on the part of social and political authorities.
National Health Service consultant pathologist John Lee, M.D summarized the point about the history of the virus over the past couple of decades: “The spread of viruses like COVID-19 is not new. What is new is our response.”
Election theft is not new. What is New is the scope and the denial
As has always been the case. GUN CONTROL measures, are never ever about STOPPING gun violence. BUT CONTROL.. period.
The Democrats should have to put full solid metal masks on their faces, with no airholes, so they will not spread covid and to stop from spreading bull. The bonus is, with metal masks on, the Democrats will not be able to make it through the metal detectors!
More over the top, fear mongering, incendiary, and baseless rhetoric from the party of fear and doom. A Congress member has more risk going to their car than they do from fellow members on the floor. What a joke and the press eats it up.
With the # of times, we have heard/seen conservative members being ATTACKED and harassed, EVERY DAMN ONE of them, should stay strapped…
Can any one say for certain that all those coming into the building last week were Trump Supporters? Given the months of well funded, well organized, violent attacks on cities all over this country, Why wouldn’t those behind that violence, put in place an “insurance policy” that one final effort on the part of President Trump, to maybe get some type of justice in this election would be thwarted?
YOU Expect these traitors, to let a little thing, like FACTS, get in the way of their treasonous narrative?
Democrats have all the symptoms of hysteria, mental illness, or insanity considering these latest screwball notions. Some are afraid of their colleagues? Assassination? The virus? Telling the truth? Pick one, pick all! It should never have been the mental state of the President that was brought into question but that of those in Congress who have suffered from paranoia ever since he was nominated.
The Democrats have more to fear from each other than they do from a Republican or Trump Supporter.
“it’s actually to help protect us from our own colleagues.”
This is coming from a supporter of the rioters, looters and arsonists of black Lies Matter and antifa.
THE SAME schmuk, who actually CELEBRATED a gop member, being harassed in public…
Frankly I think a strip search would be more appropriate. It could be broadcast live on CSPAN with the appropriate trigger warnings where necessary.
Are you sick? I certainly wouldn’t want to see MOST of those ugly flubs, neked….
You don’t have to look.
I can’t get the image of a 80’s + old wrinkled hag with her teeth chattering out of my mind.
“Grace Meng, a New York House Democrat, said the metal detectors won’t do much to prevent a future riot “but it’s actually to help protect us from our own colleagues.” Now this hypocritical Bi##h would have been cowering at the feet and begging for protection, from either Bobert, or any other house member with a gun, had the antifa goons made it all the way in. As usual democrat whiners are trying to make a political statement, to milk a situation staged and acted out by their own people. I have personally met Lauren Bobert, I donated to her campaign, I voted for her and I have eaten in her restaurant and I must say, finally after 6 terms of a neutered and useless scott tipton, it is great to have a representative with balls. You go Lauren, on just about her first day in office she did what almost 100 of her useless colleagues would not, STAND UP FOR ALL OF AMERICANS and voted to object to a fraudulent election. The gop committed suicide that day, Lauren Bobert was on the side of the people.
We have nothing to fear except the fear of Democrats packing heat. This may actually save some Republican lives. However we know how unlikely it is the Democrats will follow or enforce the laws if the perpetrators are a Democrats. Like Democrats always say. ” do as I say not as I do.” “Laws are for the little people” and all Republicans/Trump supporters.
Nah. A democrat would likely shoot themselves or another democrat.
since almost ALL of the mass shooters, have been democrats, OF COURSE i’d rather fear an armed DEM, than an armed conservative!
If masks are so effective, and Jayapal was wearing a mask, how did she contract the CHIna virus?
The theory we have been given about masks has been that it prevents an infected person from spreading the virus AND protects the user from catching it.
Someone/everyone is lying.
It’s a lie. She came down with it like the next day. Too soon to be from the 1/6 event. Same old thing, can’t blame themselves.
These dems brought this virus here, with their failure to recognize what china was doing
THEY FULLY KNEW what china was up to.. AND agreed with it!
I would like to see the list of “prohibited items” that can get them banned from the chamber. A sharp pencil, in the right hands, is a lethal weapon.
So is a fist, or foot!