GOP Rep: Wall Street doesn’t commit crimes because they don’t use guns

During a recent town-hall meeting, a Republican congressman claimed that there was no criminal activity happening on Wall Street because they don’t use guns.

Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) spoke to constituents during a town-hall event in El Dorado Hills, California and was asked many questions. A member in the audience asked what the congressman thought about “Wall Street criminal practice” and where he stood on the Glass Steagall act, a piece a legislation that was repealed in the 1990s that had previously separated commercial banks and investment banks after the stock market crash of 1929. Rep. McClintock responded, but an an interesting reason for why he didn’t believe there was any criminal activity occurring on Wall Street.

“You can get somebody to do just about anything with a gun. I hear about predatory lending, for example, my first question is that is just terrible. You shouldn’t be able to force somebody to take out a loan they don’t want. With respect to Glass Steagall, that is the measure that had been in place, it was a depression era measure, that essentially forbids banks from making a wide range of investments. My attitude is someone different on that. Instead of applying additional government forces into the process, in this gets back to your critical question, lets stop bailing out peoples bad decisions.”

When the financial crisis came into full swing in the fall of 2008, the American people looked on in horror as the economy was dealt its hardest blow since the Great Depression. Decades of looking the other way while big banks where able to run wild, continuing tax breaks for wealthy individuals and corporations and trade practices that only hurt the middle class, the economy finally fell flat on its face. For any member of congress to use an excuse of lack of fire arms for the reason there is no criminal activity on wall street is almost as delusional as the party he is apart of.