Democrats are making us vulnerable to terrorist atrocities for political gain.
The ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not a routine political dispute. It is a calculated act of brinkmanship that has dragged on for more than a month, with horrifying consequences.
At the center of this crisis are more than 100,000 DHS employees who have been forced to work without pay while continuing to carry out mission-critical duties, including aviation security. These are not bureaucrats pushing paper. They are the men and women responsible for screening passengers, detecting threats, and maintaining the integrity of the nation’s transportation system.
The numbers are staggering.
In the past year, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents detected nearly 11,500 dangerous or prohibited items, confiscated 6,669 firearms, seized 2,190 drugs or contraband items, removed 577 concealed weapons, and responded to 313 bomb threats.
Those figures are not theoretical. They represent real dangers intercepted before they could harm innocent people.
Consider what happens when the workforce responsible for stopping those threats is pushed to the brink. Agents are reporting to duty without paychecks. More than 300 have already quit within three weeks of the shutdown’s continuation. That is not a minor staffing issue. That is the beginning of systemic failure.
The visible consequences are already unfolding at airports across the country.
democrats are risking my life also by trying to restrict me from protecting myself with a firearm at home as well as out in public.