[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 52 (Wednesday, May 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN

  (Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, well, it is the people that 
kill and not the guns. I think it is time in America we start holding 
the people responsible. Banning guns, any kind of guns, will not do 
anything to curb crime. What it will do is promote a bigger black 
market for weapons. Most crimes committed with guns are committed with 
illegal guns, anyway. So, in effect, this law that we are talking about 
will not do anything; it is just another Band-Aid from Washington, DC, 
to try to fake out the Nation and take the spotlight right off the 
criminal. I tell you, guns are not doing the shooting. Let us an the 
real cause, and that is the criminals.
  Government ought to concentrate on locking up the criminal, not 
imposing criminal penalties on law-abiding citizens. Gun bans have a 
long history of failure. They do not reduce crime; crime deterrence 
lies not in gun control but in the enforcement of laws that are already 
on the books. I know there is a crime problem in America, everyone of 
us does. We will not, any of us, say there is not a real problem. Until 
we hold the criminal, not society or guns, responsible, the crime rate 
is going to continue to go up. Until we pass a real anticrime bill, we 
have not gotten to the crux of the problem.

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