[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 53 (Thursday, May 5, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
       ASSAULT WEAPON BAN PART OF A MULTIFACETED ANTICRIME EFFORT

  (Mr. MAZZOLI asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MAZZOLI. Mr. Speaker, I speak today about the assault weapon ban 
measure which will come up shortly. I voted for it in subcommittee, 
again at the full committee level, and I intend to support it today.
  Many of the arguments are valid on both sides of the issue, but one 
that I have heard so much is that these kinds of guns fire the same, 
they have the same action and use the same bullets. Then the argument 
goes on that they are used for the same purpose.
  Well, the first three of those assertions I can agree with; the last 
one, ``used for the same purpose,'' I disagree with. The guns, the 
weapons that we would ban today if this bill passes, are not used 
normally by hunters or normally by target shooters, but they are used 
normally by people on the streets to wreak havoc and to create acts of 
mayhem.
  Another argument I have heard is the shrouds and the flash 
suppressors and the pistol grips and folding stocks, that they are 
really only cosmetic additions to the weapons. At the full committee I 
asked that very question of the chairman of the committee, ``Are these 
in fact cosmetic changes, or do they have some substantive facility for 
the people who would use them for wrong purposes?'' In fact, they do 
have a use for wrong purposes: You can fire more quickly, you can do 
more damage with these features than without.
  So at the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, I think that this bill, which 
only prohibits specifically 19 weapons and releases 650, is a good 
piece of legislation and is one facet of a multifaceted anticrime bill 
that this Nation very much needs.

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