[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 40 (Thursday, April 14, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: April 14, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       WE NEED A WAR AGAINST GUNS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the House is presently considering the crime 
bill, and this afternoon we experienced something that might be called 
a frenzy, a frenzy of applications of the death penalty. We seem to be 
preoccupied with death. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the entire approach to 
crime in the United States of America by this body appears to be a 
barbarian's approach. We are acting as if we were uncivilized. Never 
before have so many educated, well educated, men and women behaved in 
such a ridiculous way. I am as concerned about crime as anybody in 
America, but I do not think we are going to solve the crime problem 
with a preoccupation with death. I do not think we are going to solve 
the crime problem by expending enormous amounts of money to build 
prisons.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are doing is contrary to what scientific 
evidence shows and contrary to people who know about crime, and 
penology, and rehabilitation geriatrics. Most of the crime is committed 
by young people, and yet we are moving to put people in prison for long 
periods, which means we will have nursing homes on a massive scale paid 
for by the taxpayers.
  There are numerous things that just do not add up, Mr. Speaker, but 
nobody wants to look at it now. The frenzy is on, and I say, ``You jump 
in the middle of the frenzy, and nobody is going to hear you, so I'm 
delighted to have this 5 minutes to just speak in a quiet moment when 
reason might be heard.''
  There is one element of fraud in all of these proceedings related to 
crime. I do not want to appear to say to my colleagues they are not 
sincere. Large numbers of them are sincere. I think most are sincere. I 
think most want to solve the crime problem, and they think they are 
doing the right thing. But there is an element of fraud in the 
proceedings in that guns are not addressed at all in terms of the 
dimensions that guns contribute to the problem.
  Mr. Speaker, guns in America are the major problem of crime. Guns are 
the element that make crime so deadly. There is less crime according to 
the surveys being done by the FBI and all other studies. There is 
really less crime. The crime rate is going down in most of our big 
cities. But the perception of the citizenry is that there is more crime 
because crime is more deadly and more dangerous, and what makes crime 
more dangerous? The proliferation of guns in our society, the fact that 
there are so many more guns.
  Mr. Speaker, a few months ago they were quoting a figure of 200 
million guns available in America right now. Already they modify the 
figure. It is more like 215 million available. Pretty soon we will have 
a gun for every American.
  Unlike any other industrialized nation, Mr. Speaker, we continue to 
ignore the power of guns and the impact of guns on our society, the way 
guns make life more dangerous for Americans. Crime is more deadly 
because there are more guns. More noncriminals, innocent people, die 
because of guns, and the danger of guns, bullets, do not know who their 
targets are. We have had a lot of organized crime battles in the 
streets in the past: St. Valentine's Day massacre, criminals shooting 
criminals. But now it is innocent people who die when this gunplay 
takes place on the streets of New York and other big cities where the 
population is dense. Innocent people die because guns are in the hands 
of younger and younger people who do not know how to use them and do 
not have any conscience in many cases.

  Right across the country guns are in the hands of enormous numbers of 
teenagers and young people. The statistics show every year that more 
and more people die from guns at a younger and younger age.
  We need a people's crusade against guns. Obviously it is not going to 
come from the Congress. Obviously we are going to act as if guns are 
not a problem. We are going to turn our back on the obvious statistics 
where nations, like Japan, have less than a hundred people killed by 
guns last year as well as nations like Great Britain, nations like 
France, nations like Belgium, Germany. All of the industrialized 
nations have very tight controls on guns, and there is a definite 
correlation between their tight controls and the number of people who 
die from guns each year. We had something like 10,000 or more last 
year, 10,000 versus less than 100 in Japan, and Germany, and France, 
and we proceed with a crime bill and have no, no, intelligent 
discussion of guns and the need to control guns.
  The gun lobby has all kinds of friends here. There are people who get 
very indignant when we talk about controlling guns. But, if we do not 
talk about controlling guns, we are perpetuating a fraud on the 
American people. We are endangering our citizens. We are not tackling 
the crime problem. We are endangering the tourism industry. There are 
numerous problems which flow from the refusal to address the problem of 
guns on the floor of this House.
  The House will not do it; Congressmen will not do it. We need a 
people's crusade. The people are going to have to make war against guns 
in order to really begin to end the crime that is most dangerous in our 
streets.

                          ____________________