GOP lawmaker brutally mocked for bizarre 'murder' analogy during hearing on Congress members owning stocks

On Thursday, April 7, Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia spoke during a congressional hearing on the proposal that members of Congress be banned from trading or owning stocks — a proposal that he is against. And the Republican congressman is being mocked on Twitter for the way in which he worked the subject of murder into the debate.

The 58-year-old Loudermilk told his colleagues, “Look, we cannot change behavior. At the founding of our country, there were four federal felonies. Four. Today, we have rooms of codebooks of laws, but yet, murders still happen. If government could change behavior, we would have no murders. We would have no thefts. We would have no fraud.”

Loudermilk continued, “So, we can’t change behavior. If we enact a law that prohibits members of Congress from owning or trading stocks, it will still happen by bad players.”

Robert Maguire, research director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), found Loudermilk’s reasoning to be flawed, posting:

Here are some more responses to Loudermilk’s comments: