ProFamily Legislators Conference – With Congressman Barry Loudermilk: How did a baseball practice on June 14, 2017 become one of the most memorable days of Congressman Loudermilk’s life? What happened when James Hodgkinson opened fire with a hit list of Republicans in his pocket? Tune in to hear a first-hand encounter of a day that shocked the nation!

Air Date: 03/30/2021

Guest: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, where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith, and the culture. We always do that with a particular perspective, that perspective is biblical, historical, and constitutional. You know, you can pick any hot topic, whatever is going on in the culture.

It could be political, something happening in Washington, DC, or in your state capitol or locally at your school board, it could be some sort of issue that you might not even think of is political, but it’s certainly cultural, maybe the Cancel culture and what’s happening with our social media right now, just the issue of civil discourse, and debate all of those things.

If you’re wondering what the right position is in this very hotly contested culture that we’re in right now, it’s very easy to say, hey, look, I’m going to look at the right resources to get the right answers. And the right resources are the Bible, the Constitution, and history itself, actually, looking at what has worked in the past, and what hasn’t worked, what policies will lead to tyranny and less freedom and which policies will lead to more freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, prosperity, all of those things that we want in our culture.

So that’s what we do here at WallBuilders Live. In fact, we really model it after that scripture in Nehemiah, arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach. Back then, if your outer walls were torn down, you were overrun, I mean, you could not survive, and they had to rebuild the walls. 

Every single one of them had some part to play. Everybody participated. That’s what we’re doing today in America. We’re rebuilding the foundations. We’re rebuilding those truths that produce a good culture. And you have a voice in that. You have a role to play in that. Every single one of us does.

And so we appreciate you listening today, diving into that, we hope to equip and inspire, and educate you, give you the things that you need to be a force multiplier to help educate other people. So as you learn these things, share them with your friends and family. We’ve got several special programs coming up this week.

ProFamily Legislators Conference

By the way, my name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And normally I’m here with David Barton, America’s premier historian, our founder here at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. But this week, we’re going to, for the rest of this week, bring you some special programs from our ProFamily Legislators Conference.

Now, we’ve done that over the last few weeks and months, over the holidays. We get to do this once a year. We get an opportunity to bring state reps and senators together from all over the nation. And we have fantastic speakers. 

I mean, it is a really special weekend. And we just think they’re good enough that we ought to share them with you, our listeners here at WallBuilders Live. And so today we’re going to be sharing with you Congressman Barry Loudermilk’s testimony. It’s an amazing story. 

It actually is very timely right now, as there is such an effort for gun control. People are asking how to respond to the boulder incident. If you’ve watched any of our teachings on the Constitution, you know that we believe in the Second Amendment, that we believe in the God given right of self-defense, it’s known as the first law of nature.

And we believe that the law and the government should protect that right and not infringe that right, and that the more you allow people to train and be ready to defend themselves, the more likely you will have someone in every Walmart or restaurant or grocery store or wherever the next wolf shows up that you’ve got a sheep dog there to stop the wolf from harming others. 

That is simply called self-defense. It is vitally important. And it’s time that the politicians got out of the way and that they allowed us to defend ourselves. You got a lot of people calling for gun control in a response, which only helps the criminal. 

It only stops the good guy that is trying to get a gun or the good gal that is trying to get a gun to defend themselves. And as we often say, around here, we believe you got to have a trained good guy or good gal with a gun in order to stop the evil that may show up.

And so we just thought this would be a great time to share Barry Loudermilk’s testimony. He was there in Washington DC, one of the congressmen that was shot at on that softball field. When all of those guys were out there getting ready to play and you had an evil person show up and try to harm as many people as they possibly could. 

Congressman Barry Loudermilk’s Testimony

The testimony’s incredible. You’re going to enjoy it. It’s going to take today and tomorrow to have the full presentation. So if you’re going to miss some of it today, or you’re going to miss tomorrow, just go to our website wallbuilderslive.com, and we’ll have both of them there. Let’s join Barry Loudermilk at the Profamily Legislators Conference.

Barry:

Tim, David and Cheryl, it’s an awesome pleasure to be here again. It’s the most memorable, one of the most memorable days of my life. It was June the 14th 2017, it was about seven o’clock in the morning. Some of you may remember the incident. I was at Simpson field in Arlington, Virginia with several of my colleagues from the Republican Party.

One of the things in Congress we do is we play an annual charity baseball game. And it’s interesting because we play one game. In the Republican side, we practice for several months, our objective of practice is to have enough healthy people after seven months of practice to still fill the team. We take it very seriously. That one game is our opening game and the world series, all in one, but it’s for charity. But we take it very seriously, especially because we’re playing the Democrats.

The Democrats, they don’t practice quite as long as we do. But quite frankly, we enjoy it. We’re up are usually about 5:00-5:30 in the morning, we’re at the field by 6:00 and we practice up until around 7:30, sometimes eight o’clock, and everybody heads back to Capitol Hill. This particular practice seemed like any other practice.

I had actually been outside the right field fence at the batting cage with Rand Paul and some others as I was the designated hitter for the Republican team. I was standing out there taking several swings and most of the team was in the field either playing in the field or doing some live pitching. 

We have several staff members that come out, a lot of them are people who even work on Capitol Hill for other members. Some work at the White House. Some are actually lobbyists. But it’s usually younger folks who had played college ball, so they come out and help us work out. Many of them were in the outfield. We had one of the staffers pitching. Several we’re working the field. I decided to go in and get some live hitting.

Open Gunfire at a Baseball Practice

So I went from outside the right field fence where the batting cage was onto the field itself, grabbed a rib batting helmet and put it on and I walked up near home plate. Representative Rodney Davis of Illinois, he’s good friend of mine was actually taking swings. He got done. 

Another member was going to get up and bat, then it was going to be my turn. Well, in between it was time to pick up balls. If you’ve ever done baseball practice, it’s you got a bucket of balls, they throw balls against the point where you got to pick them back up for the pitcher. So we had just started picking up the balls when I heard a gunshot.

Now where I live in Georgia, we hear gunshots all the time. I’m in a rural area of Georgia, I play this game in my mind. What kind of gun was that? Because I’ve got many guns myself. 

Was that a handgun? Was it a rifle? Was it a shotgun? What kind of gun what caliber was it? 

That’s what my mind started doing at that moment. What kind of gun was that? Then it dawned on me, I’m on the outskirts of Washington DC. I’m in a very urban area. Why am I hearing gunshots? 

Should I be concerned? So instinctively, I turned and I look to my right because outside the right field fence was a Capitol Police SUV parked with two special agents in it because Steve Scalise, our whip happened to be there.

Now regular members of Congress, we don’t get a security detail. But members of leadership did and Steve actually came to practice that day. And so I thought, well, let me look at their detail and see if they’re concerned and I’ll be concerned, if not, I’m just going to go on with practice. When I turned and looked out to my right, both of the agents were coming out of their vehicles. And they had concerned looks on their face.

News Reel:

Just after 7am this morning, an act of heinous political violence broke out in the suburbs outside Washington DC. A gunman named James Thomas Hodgkinson, a 66 year old from Illinois, who belonged to a Facebook group called “Terminate the Republican Party”, open fire with a rifle at a group of Republican members of Congress. The GOP lawmakers were practicing for the annual congressional baseball game, which will still take place tomorrow night.

Barry:

That was the sound I was hearing over 100 times. The shootout lasted over eight minutes. When I heard that first gunshot, there was a long pause. As I turned to the left, after I saw the Capitol Police getting out of their vehicle because the shot came from the third base side, I turned and looked down the third base line I didn’t see anything.

Rick:

You’re listening to Barry Loudermilk, congressman from Georgia that serves in Washington DC share his story. He shared it with our legislators before. He shared it at our pastors conference in Washington DC and then with our legislators at our conference in Dallas that we do for state reps and state senate. 

And it’s just incredibly powerful. We wanted to bring it to you. We’ve got to take a quick break, I’m sorry, interrupt it. We’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be right back, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

“Father of Public Schools”

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. In 1963, the United States Supreme Court decided that voluntary Bible reading could no longer be part of the school day. Founding Father, Benjamin Rush, known as the “Father of Public Schools”, under the Constitution, pointedly warned that the Bible should be read in schools in preference to all other books. He’s specifically warned that if America ever cease promoting biblical principles in schools, then we would waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them. He was right.

We now have 7 million Americans in prison, on probation or on parole, and the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Sadly, this was unnecessary, but is the result of no longer teaching the morals of the Bible in schools. For more information about the Founding Fathers views on the positive impact of the Bible in schools, go to wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. You’re hearing from Congressman Barry Loudermilk, amazing story, fantastic presentation at the Profamily Legislators Conference a few months ago. We wanted to share it with you. Let’s jump right back in.

“He Has a Gun!”

Barry:

Brigadier General Trent Kelly of Mississippi, congressman from Mississippi was in the Army Reserves was at third base. And he was looking directly over toward the third base fence and just standing there, and then he hollered. He has a gun. 

He was looking very strangely. And he turned out later, he saw movement and he turned and looked and he saw the muzzle flash from about 30 feet away. And he was wondering why he didn’t feel anything. Well, he said there he’s got a gun run. And so everybody took off in a run.

Many ran to the first base dugout. I’m running up the first baseline. And my military training kicked in at that point. If this guy gets onto the field, that will be the size of a massacre because there’s no escape. 

So I ran up the first baseline and there was a gate just past the dugout; it was open and I turned and went out that gate. But as I was running up the first baseline, I saw the ground erupting on my left. As I turned to go, it started erupting on my right and I realize this guy’s targeting me. As I went out the gate, I heard a bullet hit the post of the gate as I was going out.

Right outside the gate, there was a utility shed, a wooden shed. And I remember from my training that you get concealment, you find the aggressor. If you have a way of fighting back, you fight back; if not, you plan a route of escape. But because we were in Washington, DC, none of us had a way of fighting back. 

The only ones that had a way of fighting back were the two Capitol Police officers, who were not in position to fight back at that point. I got to the edge of the shed and I started thinking okay, I’ve got to find where this guy is. So I know that when I plan my escape, I don’t run into him, I run away from him.

So I went around the corner of the shed where I was looking back toward the backstop, and I had the Capitol Police SUV perpendicular to where I was and started running up. And as I rounded the corner, I saw a young man by the name of Matt Mika, who lobbies for Tyson Chicken and Chick-fil-A, was one of our staffers. 

Matt Mika

He came around the other side of the shed covered in blood in a big hole in the middle of his chest. He turned in laid down next to the SUV, at that moment, I started hollering, we have a man down, man down, I realize there’s no one to help him. So instinctively, I jumped up and I started running toward Matt Mika.

Another lobbyists that came around there with me, Brian Kelly, another evangelical believer, he went around with me and he saw the shooter and he hollered Barry, get down, get down. So I went down on the ground, I heard the crack of the gun, and I felt something go by the side of my face. 

I didn’t realize what it was at the time, but the bullet had hit the side of the shed, he said about eight inches from where I was. I saw Krystal Greiner, one of the Capitol Police agents was in the driver’s side of the SUV. Agent Bailey had come back from trying to get onto the field, I’d had not realized that at the time. But by the third shot that rang out had hit Steve Scalise who was standing at second base.

Rick:

My friend sorry, we got to take a quick break. Hate to interrupt Congressman Loudermilk, but we’ve got to take a break, we’ll be right back. You are listening to WallBuilders Live.

The American Story

Hey guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called The American Story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially, in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America.

Whether it be from things like the 1619 project that say America is evil, and everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not the statement, Black Lives Matter, but the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America? We actually have written and told that story. Starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America, not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people, but the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilders.com The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Today’s program is actually a recorded program. It’s a presentation at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, it’s Congressman Barry Loudermilk. Let’s jump right back in where we left off before the break.

Barry:

Steve started crawling, pulling himself by his hands into the outfield trying to get away. What was interesting is after we heard the first shot, there was this long pause before there was any other shooting. But what had happened is the shooter was standing a ways back and he shot at Trent Kelly, and obviously, was confused of why he didn’t hit Trent Kelly, as Trent was as confused as why he wasn’t hit as well.

A Republican Hit List

Then he walked up to the fence and started targeting people. When everyone took cover, and he couldn’t get on the field, because the third base fence was locked. He started working his way around the backstop. I was wearing a bright yellow jersey and a red batting helmet, not a good combination for a gunfight. 

The FBI believe he was tracking where we were. And the reason, we believe and I know that he was there to kill Republicans is because he had an assassination list in his pocket, which the major news media failed to reveal.

As I was trying to get to Matt Mika, who was laying there, from my military training, I knew Matt wasn’t going to make it if this shooting went on much longer, he was losing a lot of blood. He had a sucking chest wound. We joke around, now all wounds suck. But you know, this one was, Matt has a really good sense of humor about this. But I knew that in military triage, he’s the last one you go to. So I felt like I needed to get to Matt.

The problem I was running into is the shooter knew where we were, and there were only really two targets he had left, because most everybody went into the dugout, which he couldn’t get on the field. Or they were able to escape because Brian Kelly could see the shooter and he was telling them where to go. 

And in that video, it was really hard to see because it was somewhat choppy. But you could hear Brian Kelly telling some of the staffers who took refuge behind a tree go now, go now and go to the right, that’s because he saw the shooter begin to reload as SKS.

Every time I would try to get to Matt, he would turn and start shooting at us again. It was very frustrating. Now, it was interesting what General Duke said earlier. During his mission, he didn’t pray. During this entire shooting, I never prayed. My mind was like a supercomputer, it was running and all kinds of things were going through my head. But I also know that the scripture says that when we don’t know what to pray, the spirit prays for us.

Finally, after eight minutes and over 100 rounds shot, as I was hunkered down there trying to get 10 feet at Matt Mika, bullets would hit the shed next to me, they would run along the ground. At one point, I saw Matt, every now and then he pick his hands up, and so I knew he was still alive and I kept talking to him, but he kind of rolled over to his left and I was like Matt, don’t try to get up. I didn’t realize the gun had shot under the SUV and hit Matt in the arm.

Rick:

Stay tuned, folks, we got to take a quick break, we’ll be right back. You’re listening to Barry Loudermilk, Congressman Barry Loudermilk of Georgia. We’ll be right back on WallBuilders Live.

Patriot Academy

Have you noticed the vacuum of leadership in America? We’re looking around for leaders of principle to step up and too often no one is there. God is raising up a generation of young leaders with a passion for impacting the world around them. They’re crying out for the mentorship and leadership training they need. Patriot Academy was created to meet that need.

Patriot Academy graduates now serve in state capitals around America, in the halls of congress, in business, in the film industry, in the pulpit in every area of the culture. They’re leading effectively and impacting the world around them. Patriot academy is now expanding across the nation and now’s your chance to experience this life changing week that trains champions to change the world.

Visit patriotacademy.com for dates and locations. Our core program is still for young leaders 16 to 25 years old, but we also now have a citizen track for adults so visit the website today to learn more. Help us fill the void of leadership in America. Join us in training champions to change the world at patriotacademy.com

Rick:

Thanks for staying with us, folks. We’re going jump right back into where we were at the Profamily Legislators Conference, is a presentation by Congressman Barry Loudermilk.

Barry:

He hit one of the capitol police officers Krystal Greiner, hit her in the ankles, she went down. She had moved out from behind from the driver’s side to behind the SUV. David Bailey knew he had to draw a fire away from us so we could try to get up and help them. So he would go out into the parking lot and draw the shooter’s fire.

I saw David Bailey’s pants fluttering and he started limping and I knew he had to be about out of ammo. Now he was wounded, Brian and I discussed it. From our position if, he was able to take down this last line of defense, we would not be able to see him advance on us, and we knew he was coming to us. At that point, the FBI told us later that over 22 rounds have been shot right at our position of where we were.

And so, Brian and I decided we need to get where we can see the shooter. So he had a tree behind him about 10 yards to his left, I have one about 20 yards behind me to my right. So we took off and went to those trees. I wanted Matt know we were going to still be with him, but I really didn’t want him to know that we left.

Capitol Police Heroes

So we serpentine back and forth, I could hear the gunshots but at that point you don’t know if they’re coming at you, or not. Got behind a tree just in time to see the gun man emerge from behind a blue concrete building. He kept working behind with a handgun drawn and he and David Bailey just in an old okay corral type shootout just shooting at each other.

In one of the videos, you can hear somebody holler, “just shoot him”, that’d be me. Because the capitol police officers saying drop the weapon, drop the weapon, and I’m like he has no intention of dropping the weapon, will you kill the guy? I saw the gun man flinch once, he flinched twice and he fell down. 

In my mind, I thought, wow, that look just like the movies, but there was no music. This is type of things that you’re thinking in this, never got scared, never stopped to pray until this moment. The gunman is down, I still see Matt laying on the ground. I run the Matt, I’m wondering what can I do for Matt? He’s got a gaping hole in his chest, there’s blood everywhere.

I don’t know if I put pressure on it, I could cause more damage. But as I’m walking up and I’m running up to him, I hear the Lord say you pray for him and I’m like I don’t even know the guy. I don’t know his first name. I just called him Mica, as you do when you’re an athlete, you call each other by their last name. I don’t know the condition of his spirit. So what do you want me to pray for, Lord? 

He said you pray for his comfort, and you pray for his healing. That’s a bold step. I don’t know exactly what I prayed. But I put my hand on Matt’s head and I prayed for him. Matt told us at the hospital later, he said I didn’t even know if he knew I was there. He grabbed me and he hugged me and this was about two weeks later after several surgeries, he said thank you for never leaving me and thank you for praying. So he knew.

He said that prayer helped me, because he almost died going to the hospital. But he said I refused to die. That was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen happen. That is a memorable moment: the type of thing that most people go through their lives and they never have to experience, right? 

Another Near-Death Experience

And I’m thinking how is this going to have a change on my life and my family, gets a huge impact on my family? That was the first year that my family wasn’t coming up for the congressional baseball game.

But after I got on the phone with my two sons and my daughter and their spouses, my daughter said I got to be with daddy. So they drove all night to come to the game just to see that I was really okay. 

But there was a huge impact on the family. Was in June, it was August before I had an entire day that I didn’t have at least one flashback of that incident. But things like that happen, right, you get over them.

Then, a couple of months after that, we’re driving back to Washington DC in a rental car when someone doing on the interstate, running 110 miles an hour runs into the back of our car, sends it airborne, flips many times end over end, side over side and ended up on this side.

Rick:

Alright, friend, Sorry to interrupt again, but we have got to call it a day. We are out of time for today’s program. But we will pick up tomorrow exactly where we left off with Congressman Barry Loudermilk. If for some reason you tuned in late today, or you’re going to miss tomorrow, both programs will be available at our website wallbuilderslive.com. We sure appreciate you listening today to WallBuilders Live.

As you listen to this program, as you think about some of the things that are happening out there, you may want to consider coming with us to our constitutional defense course. It’s our opportunity to train people both in the Constitution but also in self-defense, learning how to defend yourself and your family with a handgun. 

ProFamily Legislators Conference – With Congressman Barry Loudermilk

We have people come from all over the nation. In fact, I just got back from taking 300 people through that course. We have people in their 80s that join us for this class and those as young as 11 years old. So it’s great family time as well. It’s good fellowship. It’s a mask free zone. And it’s just a great time studying the Constitution.

And if you’ve never touched a gun before, they know how to train you. In fact, a lot of people that go with us have never trained before, never even shot a gun. And then some people that come with us have shot their whole life.

But boy, do they learn a lot about how to be a whole lot better and also have the right mindset. So if you’d like to join us on that, go to constitutioncoach.com. Thanks so much for listening today to WallBuilders Live.