ProFamily Legislators Conference “€“ With Congressman Barry Loudermilk: Remember the shooting during the Congressional baseball practice? Congressman Barry Loudermilk recounts his life-changing experience of being targeted by the shooter and surviving, Tune in to hear his story of courage and hope!

Air Date: 02/13/2020

Guest: Congressman Barry Loudermilk

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture, it’s WallBuilders Live. We’re talking about today’s hottest topics, all kinds of things from things that are policy issues in your community and state and nation to things that are affecting your family, your backyard, your community, all of these policies that are so important to our lives and the way we raise our children, our education system, our freedom of religion, all the things that affect us. Here at WallBuilders, we look at those issues from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective. We believe that that is the right way to find the right issue on any or right position, I should say on any issue in the culture. And so that’s what we’ve been doing for years. And you as a listener, if you’re a first time listener, you’re going to learn a lot from this program. I can say that because I learned a lot from this program.

My name is Rick Green, I”€™m America’s constitution coach and a former Texas legislator. But I love getting to learn here on WallBuilders Live with David and Tim Barton. And I’m telling you, David Barton is America’s premier historian. He has done more to revive a love of the founding fathers and a restoration of the truth of what these guys gave us in their principles than anyone alive today. He knows more about what they actually said and did than anyone on the planet. The collection that he has over 100,000 founding documents, original documents, their letters, their journals, their correspondence with each other that I mean, you name it, all kinds of speeches, you got it. He’s absorbed more that than anyone on the planet.

National Treasures

So to get to sit here and talk to him on this radio program every day and learn from him, what a privilege that is for me. And then also from Tim Barton. Tim is a national speaker and pastor. He’s president of WallBuilders and just does a phenomenal job. By the way, if you haven’t had a presentation by Tim Barton in your community, you need to be the one to bring him in. So check that out at walbuilders.com. But David and Tim, are a wealth of information. Many, many, many congressmen and legislators across the country have told me they ran for office because of the things they heard David and Tim say in their presentations, the things that they learned from the Barton’s.

So it’s a privilege for me to be here with such national treasures. I say here with them, they’re not here today, because I’m not going to be here for a very long because we’re first going to take you out to the ProFamily Legislators Conference. Just as we did yesterday, when you got to hear from Carol Everett. Today you’re going to hear from Barry Loudermilk, he’s a congressman from Georgia. He used to be a state senator from there. He used to come to our state legislators conference every year and then became a congressman. He’s a fantastic congressman, somebody that understands the biblical, historical and constitutional perspective that you need to get to the right position on any issue out there.

And we were thrilled to have him speak to the legislators this year and challenge and encourage them and to tell his story. It’s a phenomenal, powerful, powerful story.

A Phenomenal Story

You may remember when the congressman in Washington DC, when that That group of Republican congressmen were having practice for their softball team and had a lunatic show up and just start shooting at these congressmen. Well, well, congressman, Loudermilk was right in the middle of all that, in fact, targeted by the shooter and just has a phenomenal testimony of surviving that and talking about what happened there. But his positions, his courage, his steadfastness, as a solid, biblical worldview guy in the political realm is an inspiration and we wanted to bring his presentation to you.

So we’re going to head out to the Legislators Conference. And by the way, if you haven’t heard of the ProFamily Legislators Conference, you can learn more at wallbuilders.com today. We encourage you to let your legislator know about it and encourage them to go to the conference. It’ll be a great time for them to be encouraged and to be around like-minded folks and get exchange ideas. There’s something about that, that sharpening of each other’s countenance, as iron sharpens iron, and that’s what happens at the ProFamily Legislators Conference. So we’re going to take you out there right now. This is Barry Loudermilk on WallBuilders live.

Barry:

I can’t tell you how, how excited my wife and I, Desiree are to be here at this event with you. As Tim said, I attended several years ago when I was in the State Senate. And this was a life changing event for us.

A Life-Changing Event

In what we learned, the connections that we made at this event that have lasted throughout the time that I’ve been in public service and the connectivity between different states, legislators of different states, many of us continued to work on similar type projects. When I went back into this the State Senate, we would compare what’s working, what isn’t working and how to actually get legislation through.

And so this is just an incredible opportunity to not just cherish the moments that you’re here, but to continue with those relationship going forward and you’re in it. If there’s ever been a time in history that you’ve been in it, you’re in it right now.

And as I’ve traveled across the State of Georgia and actually other areas, one of the consistent messages I’ve been giving people is to where we are today in this nation is we’re winning. And they look at me like, I’m crazy. How can you think we’re winning with all the turmoil that we have with the oppression that we as conservatives, as Christians, with the oppression that we’re receiving? I mean, I even had one person say, have you actually looked at your Facebook page? And the reality is no, because I want to have a good positive day. You know, I want to rejoice and be glad in the day, so I stay away from Facebook. So my wife reads it and if it’s just something well over the top or if it’s another threat, she’ll let me know about it. But I can usually tell.

That”€™s When They Start Shooting

When she first started. She told me you’ve got to stay on Facebook, I’m going to start reading your Facebook posts. I have a press team that actually works on putting the things out there and we kind of rate the head explosion that we’re going to get from the left by what we put on there.

When she first started reading it, I could just tell it was really bad, because, I mean, sometimes it brings me to tears. But now she laughs at those things. I mean, it’s how God has worked. And one of the reasons that I can say that we’re winning is something that my dad told me.

My dad was a medic in World War Two, he”€™s an army participate in the D-Day invasion, was assigned to Patton’s Third Army during the Battle of the Bulge. I mean, he saw the worst of humanity. And he told me something. He said, when they were preparing for the invasion of Normandy and they were training in England, he said the Nazis weren’t shooting at us, not from Normandy. He said, when we got on the ships to cross the channel, the Nazis weren’t shooting at us from Normandy. When we boarded the landing craft, they weren’t shooting at us from Normandy. But as soon as we started taking their ground, that’s when they started shooting at us.

A Moment from American History

This is David Barton with another moment from America’s history. It is a definite biblical teaching that every individual answer to God for the stewardship with which he was entrusted. Previous generations therefore realized that not only would each of us answer to God for how we handled our life and our family and our possessions, but also for how we handled our country.

Consequently, voting was going considered an act for which we were directly accountable to God. As Samuel Adams explained, “€œLet each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote, that he is executing one of the most solemn trust and human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. He should then appeal to his conscience that he is not trifled with that sacred trust. Voting is a serious responsibility for which Christians will answer to God. Therefore make sure that you vote and vote biblically in the upcoming elections.

For more information on God’s hand in American history, contact WallBuilders at 1808REBUILD.

We”€™re Taking Ground

Barry:

The more ground they took, the more intense the battle was. And the fact that we’re going through this level of fighting tells us we’re winning, we’re taking ground, we’re a threat to the other side. We should worry when everything is peaceful and calm, because then we’re not creating waves and we’re not creating problems in the spirit of darkness.

I don’t know if he really understood what he was saying. But the gentleman who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, President Donald Trump said something I think was providential. He said, we’re going to win and you’re going to get tired of winning. What I don’t think he understood or maybe he did, was you don’t win without fighting. You know, and your fight has to go all the way through to the final minutes and final seconds. If you don’t believe that, just come to Atlanta and watch the Falcons play in the Super Bowl, right? You can’t only fight for three quarters of the football game and then give up especially when you’re fighting against the team such as the Patriots, you will lose. And so we can’t be weary in our battle, we can’t be weary going forward but understanding that we’re fighting a spiritual warfare and that God will prepare you for being in it.

My wife and I experienced some, I’ll say interesting things over the period of about a year and a half. Now, Tim mentioned one of those. It was June the 14th, 2017. I play on the congressional baseball team, most of America didn’t realize we had a congressional baseball game. It’s a charity game.

Congressional Baseball Practice Shooting

We actually play at the Washington National Stadium, this same if you watched any of the World Series. As I was watching one of the games of the World Series, I realized that, man, I stood at that plate. I was actually on the field. That’s pretty amazing.

And so it’s republicans versus Democrats. We practice for about three or four months out of the year to play one game. We always say the season opener and the final game is all in one in one game, so we build this practice to play one game. June the 14th was the last practice, it was Flag Day.

Usually, last practice, you don’t have the full attendance. Some guys, the earlier that we start practicing, the more injuries we sustain. Okay? Usually, let”€™s say, I think this year we had a torn groin, dislocated shoulder and a heart attack just during practices. So some guys if we get closer to the game, they feel that, you know, I’ve made it through this far, I’m going to skip practice.

That morning, I was surprised as we pulled up, there was a Capitol Police SUV there with Steve Scalise detail, because normally he wouldn’t be at the last practice. He’s the starting second baseman, but he came that morning. And he wrote a book about the incident, “€˜Go Back in the game”€™. And in there he talked about how he was originally not going to go to practice that day, but decided to go at the last minute.

Capitol Police

But because he was there, we had to Capitol Police officers there as a detail. And they pulled their SUV up along the first base line facing the fence where they could see onto the field. They could sit in the SUV and they could see Scalise out on the field. It was about, I think it’s just a little after seven o’clock, we’re winding down practice. We start practice at six o’clock in the morning.

And so we were right near the end of practice, I had been out in a batting cage. I decided to go up to actually do some live hitting as I was designated hitter for republican team. And I was standing there just put a batting helmet on when I heard a gunshot. Now, I live in rural Georgia, we hear gunshots all the time. Right? And always play this game, what was that? Was it a hunting rifle? Was it a hand gun? You know, I’m trying to figure out what it was. I also found out in rural Alabama, you hear the same thing. The only difference is after about three shots, you hear a propane tank explode in Alabama.

So, I’m trying to figure out, you know, what was, then I”€™m suddenly realized, why am I hearing a gunshot in Alexandria, Virginia? And then I decided, well, do, I need to be concerned. So I’m standing at home plate. The shot came out from the third base side. I looked over to the Capitol Police figured if they look concerned, I”€™ll be concerned. They were exiting the vehicle with a concerned look on their face. And there had been a period of time after the gunshot that there was nothing.

“€œHe”€™s Got a Gun!”€

Then our third baseman Trent Kelly hollered, he’s got a gun. At that point, people started running and we started hearing the gunshots one after another. What had happened is that the madman had walked up and he saw Trent Kelly at third base. And he took a shot at him about 10 feet away from the fence.

BREAK “€“ Bring a Speaker to Your Area!

Hey, this is Tim Burton with WallBuilders. And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional. And you might be thinking as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school, or some political event or activity.

If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. And if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers BIOS, to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are where we came from our religious liberties and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Looking Right at a Rifle

Barry:

Trent had turned he saw something and he was looking right at the rifle. Now Trent is a brigadier general in the Army Reserves. I think he was a lieutenant colonel at the time general. I mean, that was a quick promotion from Lieutenant Colonel to Brigadier General in about a year. But he saw the muzzle flash. The gun pointed directly at his head, but the bullet missed him. We found out later it actually hit one of the links in the chain link fence and deflected away from him. He knew to alert everyone.

I immediately started running up the first baseline. Most of my colleagues were heading the dugout. Now this is a real dugout. It’s not one of the ones that you see in a lot of the new little league fields with just a fence. This is literally a concrete dugout. It is practice field. So a lot of my colleagues were diving into that dugout. My military training kicked back in, that’s a kill box.

If that gunman gets onto the field that there’s going to be side of a massacre. So I took a longer path to get actually out the gate and off the field. As I was running, I saw the ground explode several times to my left, right in front of me. Jeff Flake, who had just, he”€™d crossed my path over the dugout, he told me at the White House a couple days later, we were there for an event, he said was amazing was the rounds that hit the ground to the right of you.

One of Several Miracles

And it didn’t dawn on me at the time what he was talking about because I didn’t see those. But from the angle the shooter was shooting, for them to hit directly on my right those bullets basically had to pass between my legs.

As I turned to go out to field, I heard around hit the fence. I realized this guy is targeting me. Now, at six foot three, I was about 50 pounds heavier and to make it even better, I was wearing a bright yellow jersey. Don’t wear yellow to a gunfight. That’s one of the things I learned.

As I went out the gate, I didn’t realize it. But one of the staff members decided to follow me out the gate instead of going in the dugout. Now his name is Matt Mika, he is lobbyists for Chick-fil-A and Tyson’s chicken and some others. But he comes out and he helps us with our baseball.

And so he decided to follow me out the gate. As he turned to go out the gate, one of the rounds entered right under his armpit, turned inside of his body and came out the center of his chest. There was a shit right outside the gate. I got behind this shit because as we were taught, you get concealment, you find where the aggressor is. If you have means of fighting back, fight back; if not, plan a route of escape, I had no means of fighting back. So I’m going to get there and we’ll figure out where the shooter is plan, a route of escape.

Rescuing Matt Mika

I got behind the shade and knew that had to work around to the side to where it was looking back toward the backstop to be able to tell where he was. Myself and one of the staff members went around the corner. And that’s when I saw Matt Mika walk up to the Capitol Police SUV, which was about 30 feet in front of me or 20 feet in front of me, turn around, lay down totally covered in blood.

I started hollering, we have a man down, man down. I realized at that point, there’s no one can do anything to help, because we’re pinned down by this guy who’s fired several rounds. At this point. I didn’t realize that Scalise had gotten hit. Scalise was hit in about the third shot. As he turned to run away, bullet went into his hip. The biggest issue was stiff as it didn’t come out.

So I immediately started to run up to try to help man. The guy that was with me, he hollered, said, Barry, get down, get down, get down as I was running up. And I was getting right near the front of the shade, so I just dove on the ground. And that’s when I heard something go”€¦

Later that evening, he said, you didn’t even flinch when that bullet hit the shade right next to your head. I was like, oh, that’s what that was. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know what it was at the time. But my eyes were focused on Matt, because there’s Matt with a sucking chest wound, he”€™s bleeding to death. I’ve got to help Matt.

Eight Minutes

Now this shooting lasted for eight minutes. He shot nearly just over 100 rounds during this time period. The majority of the time was he had worked his way behind the backstop because he was tracking this bright yellow jersey. He was there to kill Republican members of Congress. He actually had an assassination list in his pocket. He was there to kill Republican members of Congress. They were wearing baseball uniforms so he was targeting those wearing baseball uniforms.

So between me and the shooter was a Capitol Police SUV. He took out one of the Capitol Police agents that shooting underneath the SUV. Hit agent Greiner in the ankle, took her down. She was laying right next to Matt Mika, 10 feet in front of me. And the whole time, I’m focused on getting to him. It’s funny, some of the things that go through your mind.

One of the things that kept running through my mind was a scene from the movie, Hacksaw Ridge. You may have seen that. It’s actually one of the stories I had written in my book long before the movie came out. But Desmond [inaudible 20:39] is there and he kept saying, Lord, help me get one more. And that’s what kept running through my mind, at least, let me get to Matt. But every time we move forward, he would turn and he would start shooting back at us underneath the SUV.

The Capitol Police estimated he shot 20 something rounds at me and Brian who was with me during that time period, because we were the only two targets he had left. David Bailey, Capitol Police officer would move out to draw fire away.

Buying Time

But he had a handgun. He was already on his third magazine of his Glock 19 which holds 17 rounds. He was, I could tell what he was doing just trying to buy time. He would just try to buy time till more law enforcement to get there.

So when they finally took down the perpetrator, I immediately ran up to Matt and he”€™s laying there bleeding. And all my training immediately came back, sucking chest move. What do I need to do? I can’t put pressure on it. I don’t know what else was damaged. I could puncture is heart. I could do more damage. But I do know one thing I can do, I can pray.

Front Sight Firearms Training

Hey friends, Rick Green here from WallBuilders Live. What do Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Ben Shapiro, Rick Green, Tim Barton, David Barton, what all these folks have in common other than the fact that they’re conservative commentators that defend the Constitution and educate America on the Constitution. They’re all raving about Front Sight Firearms Training Institute.

In fact, if you go to my website right now today at rickgreen.com, you can watch the video of Dennis Prager training at Front Sight or Larry Elder training at the front side or Tim Barton and myself training out there Front Sight. It’s an opportunity for you to learn how to defend yourself and your family to make sure that you’re ready and able to do that. It is a fantastic place to train. They train literally 30,000-40,000 people a year and they’re just wonderful to work with. And you can go with us, we’re headed back out. We’re going to have a great time out there as the WallBuilders family.

And if you’re a supporter of WallBuilders, we have an amazing deal for you, it’s actually going to cost you one-tenth the normal price to attend this two-day handgun training because you’re going with us and you’ll also get the Constitution crash course. I’ll be teaching on the constitution. You”€™ll get the intellectual ammunition that you need to defend the Second Amendment and our Constitution as well as getting the physical training on how to defend yourself and your family. And this is for everyone: guys, gals, everyone should take this class. For no matter how much you shot your whole life or if you’ve never touched a gun, learn how to defend your family.

Constitutional Training

We’re going to be going several times throughout the year and we would love to have you be a part of that. Check out rickgreen.com today to find out the dates and all the specifics and getting all of your questions answered. Check out rickgreen.com today to join us on this front sight trip for both your constitutional and your handgun defense training.

Barry:

Lord impress upon me to pray for Matt and I’m thinking, I don’t know his status or what do I pray for somebody who’s going to die? Matt is not going to live obviously, he’s been laying there bleeding profusely for eight minutes. I don’t know how long it’s going to take EMTs to get here. What do I pray, Lord? And I can’t tell you exactly what I prayed, but I prayed for his healing. That’s what I was directed to pray for. It was amazing.

A Prayer

My wife and I would visit Matt in the hospital about two weeks later, I didn’t even know he knew I was there. But he pulled me up to him and he hugged me. He said, thank you for not leaving me. And then I heard him tell somebody, this is the man who played the Lord’s Prayer over me. It was interesting. I didn’t pray the Lord’s Prayer, but that’s what he heard because that’s what he could associate with. That’s a life changing experience. That’s one of the things that hopefully none of you ever have to endure, to go through a mass shooting.

It was about a month and a half later, my wife and I were driving back to Washington DC from Georgia in a rental car. It was about midnight, we’re going to stop in Knoxville to spend the night and drive on in the next morning. I was driving about 60 miles an hour in the right hand lane because we’re getting ready to exit when all of a sudden, this Nissan Rober in lurches forward, turn sideways and then start somersaulting down the interstate.

Rick:

Hi, friends, we are out of time for today. So I’m going to have to interrupt congressman Loudermilk”€™s, presentation at the ProFamily Legislators Conference and we will get the rest of it tomorrow right here on WallBuilders Live. In the meantime, you can visit our website at wallbuilderslive.com, there’s a ton of great information there. You can get archives of the program from the last few weeks and a lot of other things.

ProFamily Legislators Conference “€“ With Congressman Barry Loudermilk

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And it’s a great way for you to come alongside us, to be a part of the solution. You’re literally voting with your dollars when you do that. You’re literally giving of your life, your fortune and your sacred honor as a part of the solution to restore America’s constitutional republic. So please consider doing that today.

Check it out at wallbuilderslive.com, it’s quick and easy to do and you will become a blessing to not only yourself and then being able to hear the program and not only us here at WallBuilders, but all of our other listeners out there that benefit from your contribution to WallBuilders Live. Thanks so much for listening today. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.