Steve Scalise Says Democrats Wouldn’t Allow Him To Testify At House Gun Violence Hearing

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise said Wednesday that House Democrats refused to allow him to testify before the Judiciary Committee’s hearing on gun violence.

“Historically when Republicans were in charge, even when Democrats were in charge prior to this more radical leftist majority, if a member of Congress wanted to testify on a committee, they always provided a venue for that to happen,” Scalise explained on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

“In this case they were having a hearing in the judiciary on reducing gun violence and I’ve got a perspective, clearly mine dealt with something that happened to me and I saw how guns were used to saved people’s lives and it should have been able to be part of the testimony,” he continued. “They wanted to focus on taking away the rights of law-abiding citizens, which their bill ultimately does.”

Scalise was notably the subject of an assassination attempt after a left-wing activist opened fire while Republicans were practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game. He was shot in the hip and gravely injured during the attack.

Republicans were provided only two out of eight witnesses for the hearing and a spokesman for the House Judiciary Democrats told Fox News that Republicans, not Democrats, choose to deny Scalise testimony. Scalise’s office responded that it is standard practice in Congress to hold an additional panel for members who have relevant and notable experience on the issue. Democrats did not allow for such a panel during the ‘Preventing Gun Violence: A Call to Action’ hearing.

“[Democrats] think they can silence conservative voices, but you know what, they can’t silence our voices. We’re going to get this message out anyway,” the Louisiana congressman said.  “Go read their bill, by the way, H.R. 8 — if you loan your shotgun to a friend of yours to go hunting, under certain circumstances in their bill you can actually go to jail for a year and have a $100,000 fine.”