[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]


                              {time}  1200
 
          THE WILL OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE--BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS

  (Mr. ENGEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, today the American people are waiting with 
bated breath to see if this Congress stands with the American people in 
an assault weapons ban or stands with the special interests that are 
desperately trying to prevent this body from doing the will of the 
American people.
  Polls have shown that 77 percent of Americans want as assault weapons 
ban. Violence is in our streets, violence is in our cities and our 
towns, and yet we sit and wring our hands and do not react to it at 
all.
  In the killings on the Long Island Railroad, if that person did not 
have an assault weapon, many people would still be alive today.
  One percent of all privately owned firearms are assault weapons, yet 
they accounted for 8 percent of all firearms deaths last year, in 1993.
  These weapons are not for hunting or for legitimate sports purposes. 
They are only for one thing--to kill people, to be put in the hands of 
the unstable to kill people. The logic that somehow the fact that we 
are not banning all assault weapons means that we should not ban some 
escapes me.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people are watching. If we do not do what 
the American people want us to do in this instance, shame on us all.

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