[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 73 (Monday, June 13, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1850
 
                     DECEPTION IN CRIME LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Shepherd). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Taylor] is recognized for 60 minutes as the 
designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I am here tonight to 
speak about a subject that I think is bothering constituents all over 
the United States. In a single word, that is deception, deception that 
is tied in to much of the legislation that is enacted in Congress. All 
Congressmen are not guilty of this deception, and not everyone in the 
administration is guilty of this deception, but it is widespread enough 
that the public feels frustrated, and it is the thing that is turning 
them against voting. It is the thing that destroys the trust they have 
with their public officials.
  Mr. Speaker, let us talk about some of the examples. People will go 
to the election and hear politicians speak about A, and how important 
it is to work for A, and they vote for them to get A, and then when 
they come to the House they see them voting and they get B.
  The recent crime bill is a good example. What do people in this 
Nation want? Why is crime such a top priority for the people in this 
country? If we read last month's National Review, they go over a 
variety of statistics. Those statistics start by saying ``The average 
time for a list of crimes has been reduced dramatically in the last 30 
years.''
  For instance, a crime committed in 1962, that identical crime today, 
you would be 90-percent less likely to serve time for that identical 
crime as you would have been in 1962; that 40 percent of all crimes are 
plea-bargained from the beginning; that 70 percent of all crimes are 
reduced, the sentence or the crime itself is reduced before sentencing; 
that or armed robbery, they had a period of time of 3 to 6 days; car 
theft, 3 to 6 days. The average time spent for rape was less than 6 
months, and the average time spent for murder was less than 2 years.
  We know, Madam Speaker, that two-thirds of all crime is committed by 
repeat offenders. We know almost 70 percent of all violent crime is 
committed by roughly 7 percent of those repeat offenders and those 
violent criminals.
  Knowing all of those statistics, the fact that the great portion of 
crime is repeated over and over again, that people see light sentences 
that have evolved over the last 30 years, sentences that really are 
meaningless, in fact, it puts a whole sense of hypocrisy about the 
three strikes and you're out.
  People certainly want folks to be incarcerated after a period of 
time, but the National Review article points out that their study 
showed that people who commit a crime and are convicted of that crime 
usually have committed between 7 and 9 crimes prior to that. Those 
crimes were either pled down or dismissed or perhaps the criminal was 
not caught.
  In that case, instead of 3 strikes and you're out, you really would 
have to say 27 strikes and you're out, if you follow that review.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder].
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the gentleman for 
bringing this up. I think the gentleman's statistics are correct vis-a-
vis the apprehension of criminals, but I hope the gentleman is not 
implying we are not doing anything about it.
  I think one of the most exciting things that happened was the April 
20 signing of the memorandum of understanding between the Department of 
Justice and the Department of Defense to try and get some of this 
equipment transferred from defense to law enforcement, because law 
enforcement basically has no more tools than Wyatt Earp had except that 
they have a car rather than a horse.
  Madam Speaker, I think that is the type of thing we are trying to do 
in the crime bill, and trying to do on this side of the aisle. I hope 
the gentleman would be applauding that, because our law enforcement 
people tell us that is long overdue, and they have been waiting, where 
have we been.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, that is a mere Band-Aid 
for the need that is out there. I do certainly support the efforts to 
give law enforcement officers the tools with which to fight crime. 
However, if we talk to law enforcement officers, they are frustrated 
about what the so-called crime bill has done. Law enforcement officers, 
policemen on the street, I talked with district attorneys, and the 
National Association of District Attorneys have spoken out on it. Let 
us see why it is. It goes back to the heart of what we are talking 
about in the area of deception.

  Madam Speaker, I would like to unfold the case altogether, and then 
the gentlewoman may see where there would be opportunities for her to 
make suggestions.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman does not mind, I 
would appreciate that. That would be very good.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, the crime bill itself 
was brought forward, I think, because crime was, as I indicated, a high 
priority on people's minds. If we take that priority, and we in the 
Legislature who represent those people try to respond to it, how should 
we be responding? If we go back to the statistics I gave a moment ago, 
the fact that there has been a gradual eroding of imprisonment, 
incarceration for violent crimes over the last 30 years, as the 
statistics I just showed, that obviously the public would be well-
served by us focusing in that area, by us focusing in a way that would 
give them some assurance that they would have a longer sentence for a 
rapist than 6 months, that they would have a longer sentence for a 
murderer averaging more than 2 years, that they would have a longer 
sentence for armed robbery than a matter of days. That, I think, they 
wanted to see.
  Madam Speaker, we did some positive things in the crime control bill, 
but we did not do the things that we should have done altogether.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to talk about one aspect of it in the 
beginning, some of the good things that are outlined, and they were put 
in mostly by amendments. Some of the amendments were defeated.
  The three strikes and you're out were toughened from the original 
bill. While it is not a solution, it is something that the public 
wanted, and I think it is something that makes a difference.
  Despite the administration's cutting the FBI, the EPA, and the Drug 
Enforcement Agency, that subcommittee has added almost 1,000 new Border 
Patrol agents, has increased the number in the FBI, and also has 
increased it in the other law enforcement areas, which will greatly 
strengthen law enforcement. It was not in the original bill, it was 
done inside the Appropriations Subcommittee, not in the original 
legislation.
  Madam Speaker, the amount of money going to police, something close 
to $3 billion to be used to hire police officers for various community 
policing programs, is certainly helpful, but it is not what people had 
in mind, and it certainly is not a significant part of a $28 billion 
price tag for the crime bill--$3 billion is just a little over 10 
percent, and most people thought a great portion of that $28 billion 
would be used for police and incarceration, and it is not.
  Madam Speaker, if we want to look at today's Wall Street Journal, an 
article by Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute, and I am quoting from 
it, if I may, Madam Speaker, it says, ``Don't look now, but after 18 
months in office Bill Clinton is finally going to get his long-awaited 
fiscal stimulus bill through Congress.'' This was the stimulus bill 
they are referring to that was defeated about 18 months ago when it was 
first presented by President Clinton.
  It says, ``This year the White House and big-city mayors have used an 
ingenious market strategy. They call it a crime bill. In fact, it is a 
well-kept secret of Capitol Hill that this crime bill is the largest 
urban cash program to come through Congress since Richard Nixon 
invented revenue-sharing. The current price tag,'' they point out, is 
$28 billion over 5 years.
  They point out that ``The bill attacks a number of areas that have 
nothing to do with crime.'' They say that the Federal Government 
abolished, for instance, the Urban Development Action Grant, the UDAG 
program of some years ago, because of the wasteful outlay of funds, 
billions of dollars, they point out, that include building tennis 
courts and luxury hotels, and yet it says the crime bill is equivalent 
to adding 10 new UDAG programs, or three new CETA, that is, Federal job 
training programs, to the budget.

                              {time}  1900

  ``It's easy to understand the temptation facing the urban lobby. 
Although more than half of the money in this bill is dedicated to 
prisons and policemen, much of the rest expands our social welfare 
programs, the kind which it has been argued contributed to building the 
kind of society that permits crime in the first place. Unlike most of 
the great social welfare legislation of the 1960s and early seventies, 
this bill does not even make the pretense of starting small.''
  They point out that almost $10 billion would be earmarked for 
prevention and rehabilitation programs, ``including such proven 
successful crime busting initiatives as education programs to increase 
the self esteem of young criminals and provide youth with life skills, 
funding for culture programs, arts and crafts, health, education and 
dance programs.''
  They go on with the list of programs that are involved in the bill. 
As Mr. Moore pointed out, some of the program's funds that are being 
used in this $28 billion will go toward incarcerations and police, but 
almost half of it, as pointed out here, goes to social programs that 
have little impact and have been proven to have little impact on crime.
  I favor job training, but we have 150 federally funded job training 
programs now. Adding a 151st does not give me an assurance that it will 
do much for crime.
  Most people do not realize what is in this legislation. We go on and 
see that another factor in the legislation is the abolition of the 
death penalty.
  I am not just saying this, although I have read it, and I see where 
if the bill certainly is enforced it will abolish the death penalty. 
But the National Association of District Attorneys has said, ``This 
legislation with the racial quota sections in it will effectively 
abolish the death penalty.'' I would think that the National 
Association of District Attorneys would have studied this legislation 
and have a pretty good feel for it. We can go on and explain how this 
would bring about that change, but I think that fact is evident.
  Then we find that if the crime bill abolishes capital punishment and 
gives 3,800 convicted felons on death row an opportunity for appeal, is 
that what the American people thought they were getting in this crime 
bill?
  The crime bill also abolishes the mandatory sentencing for drug 
pushers. There are some 16,000 in the Federal penitentiaries and they 
say these 16,000 will now have a chance for appeal and a chance for 
release. And the mandatory drug sentencing will be abolished.
  The Attorney General, at her own volition, has already abolished the 
mandatory action that was involved for using a gun in the commission of 
a crime. But that was hardly necessary because part of what happens in 
that area with the use of guns in crimes is that there is no conviction 
usually which results. In fact, I will go back to the National Review 
study. They point out that most solicitors, district attorneys, U.S. 
attorneys will not prosecute where a gun violation is involved. 
Certainly if they see that they are getting only a matter of days for 
an armed robbery, then they are not going to spend the court's time 
prosecuting for someone carrying a gun before they commit an armed 
robbery. So they point out that there are few, almost no prosecutions 
and convictions or incarcerations for the use of a gun or carrying a 
gun violating existing gun laws.
  This takes me to another area of deception, and that is in order to 
push this bill through, in order to push $28 billion in expenditures 
over 5 years in the name of crime, when almost half of it is being 
spent for social programs, in order to push a crime bill through that 
abolishes capital punishment, in order to push a crime bill through 
that abolishes mandatory sentencing for drug pushing, the presenters of 
this legislation had to keep your eyes on something. They did not want 
you to read and study this bill, because I do not think the people of 
this country would go for this kind of legislation under the guise of 
crime control.
  The deception was in the area of gun control. Now the first 
presentation in the area of gun control comes with the understanding 
that you have to accept, and it is not true, but it is put out as a 
premise that there is no gun control out there, that people are running 
rampant without any laws dealing with guns. The first thing we know is 
that there are some 22,000 regulations and laws dealing with guns in 
this country already.
  I recently visited a small store that sold hunting ammunition and 
shotguns, and I looked at what they had to comply with, and this was 
before we had passed the crime bill or the Brady bill or any of these 
other things we have talked about. They had 219 pages of regulations 
they had to follow. The print is very small for each of those pages. 
They have to follow that with numerous forms, all of which are criminal 
acts if they fail to comply with those regulations, and that was to 
sell what would be regular hunting ammunition, and certainly weapons 
that are not considered to be other than those to be used for hunting.

  In addition to that, I asked our local law enforcement officers about 
the Brady bill in North Carolina. They say it will be a nightmare for 
them, and it will probably weaken North Carolina's law. North Carolina 
has had for nearly 60 years a statute that requires a purchasing permit 
before you can buy a handgun. To get the purchasing permit you go to 
the clerk of court or the sheriff, it alternates depending on the local 
legislation, and request that permit. The clerk, for instance, can give 
the permit immediately if she knows you, knows your character and 
background, and that sort of thing, she may issue the permit 
immediately, or she may take 5 days, or 30 days, or as long as she 
wants, or never issue it under North Carolina's law that is over 60 
years of age.
  The authorities tell us now that although there was an effort to 
exclude State laws in the Brady bill that it is entirely possible that 
the Federal law will overshadow our State law, and in fact may require 
the clerk now to produce a permit or not produce it in 5 days, greatly 
weakening the law that we have had on the statutes for 60 years. That 
is not a movement in the right direction, and I think that without the 
funding that we have now where we are bringing about some instantaneous 
check, the 5-day waiting period was not very useful, but I wanted to 
point that out to show an effort, well-meaning perhaps, to strengthen a 
gun law may result in weakening it in one State.
  With the numerous gun bills that we now have, the numerous pieces of 
legislation that we now have on the books that we are not enforcing, is 
there a need for an additional gun control piece of legislation?
  The public perceives that we are doing something about automatic 
weapons. We are not doing anything about automatic weapons. Automatic 
weapons have been outlawed since 1934 in this country by a Federal act. 
The semiautomatic weapons that are used in crime, according to police 
authorities that I have talked with, are usually adjusted. In other 
words, they do not come out with a semiautomatic weapon that does not 
fire automatically at that time. It fires one shot after the other. The 
semiautomatic weapon is adjusted. You can make mechanical changes in 
it. People with minimal skills can do that and turn the semiautomatic 
into an automatic weapon. That is the type of weapon that people see on 
the street, the street sweepers and these other types of weapons of 
that nature. But when you make that change from a semiautomatic weapon 
to an automatic weapon, which most criminals do, you violate the 1934 
law. You have committed a felony. Can we make it more illegal? That is 
what the perception was in the gun control section of the crime bill, 
was to make something more illegal. But what we are not doing, as I 
mentioned a moment ago, we are not prosecuting the violations of the 
gun laws now. Will we prosecute them in the future? We have sufficient 
legislation now to take the street sweepers off the street, to take 
most of the so-called what we think of as assault weapons off the 
street.
  There was a poll done with some 3,000 policemen in our State, and 86 
percent were not in favor of the gun control bill because they saw it 
as a useless piece of legislation. They see that we are not enforcing 
today's gun laws, we are not incarcerating violent criminals, and 
putting another law that will overlap present gun control laws will not 
do much for crime. In the legislation itself we have to look back and 
ask what is an assault weapon.

                              {time}  1910

  Well, a rock can be an assault weapon. The weapons that we think of 
that were listed in the press, I think they said some 19 assault 
weapons would be taken off the streets. The 19 weapons that were stated 
in the press to be taken off the street were weapons that, according to 
law enforcement agents, are responsible for less than a quarter of a 
percent of the homicides that we now have.
  So that if we took them all off the street, and most of them are 
there illegally anyway. These are not legal weapons that were brought 
onto the street but a good portion are brought on illegally. If we took 
them off, it would adjust the homicide rate less than a quarter of a 
percent, and if, in fact, you convict the person using the weapon of a 
crime and you go back to the average period of the crime, less than 2 
years, what have we done then by adding additional weapons?
  If you read the legislation in the crime bill, if you read the 
legislation you get a definition of what an assault weapon is. There is 
a list of criteria for rifles. There is a list of criteria for 
shotguns. If you trigger any two of those criteria, then you have 
created an assault weapon under the statute.
  The Treasury Department says that they have identified something 
close to 187 weapons now that trigger that assault weapon section of 
the statute, and they think that is just the beginning. There are many 
more.
  I have three sons. They all are hunters. They all are Scouts. They 
have had training programs in the use of firearms, and they enjoy 
hunting. My youngest son has a shotgun. It is a shotgun that he uses 
for turkey hunting.
  When you look it up and look at the criteria for that shotgun, it is 
an assault weapon. It has a carved handle that is just before the 
stock, which is one of the criteria, and it holds six shots, which is a 
second criterion. If it holds more than five shots, then it is an 
assault weapon. It also has a third criterion, that it does not even 
need to be an assault weapon.
  His shotgun, which he uses for turkey hunting, which is probably a 
simple form of shotgun as you might find, is an assault weapon.
  If you look at the 187 guns already listed, you will find a lot of 
weapons that are plain hunting weapons that will meet the assault 
weapon criteria either for shotgun or for rifle. Now, that goes far 
beyond what most people think was intended in the assault weapon. The 
press played out 19 basic weapons, some of which are not as dangerous 
unless they are adjusted. In other words they do not do the rapid 
firing without an adjustment which violates the Federal law when the 
adjustment is made.
  So I go back to the beginning of my statement: Instead of coming 
forward honestly with the people, what we are trying to do in the area 
of crime control, in an area of answering the basic needs proven by the 
statistics that we need to be very firm in incarcerating violent 
criminals, that we need to move, justice needs to be fair, but it must 
be swift, that it is not the feeling of the people of this country to 
abolish the death penalty as this legislation would, instead of moving 
in that direction, we have, in fact, created a deception where we do 
have some valuable parts of it for law enforcement, but we have loaded 
down billions and billions of dollars in social programs that should 
not be in this bill, that should be debated outside. They should be 
debated out in other legislation. They should be approached in 
the whole area of welfare reform that I hope this body will get to 
soon.

  In the area of gun control, we have baldly, deceptively tried to tell 
the people that we are providing protection that we are not. We have 
removed the mandatory sentencing for the use of a gun in a crime, which 
is probably the best medicine that we would have for preventing use of 
guns in violent crimes, that we have ignored the fact that there are 
thousands of regulations and laws already on the books dealing with 
guns, most of which are not enforced, most of which are not prosecuted, 
most of which no one ever goes to jail for violating.
  In fact, the President made a statement in Congressman 
Sensenbrenner's district about a police chief who was killed in a bank 
robbery, and he used that as an example, and some other people were 
injured during that fight. That, of course, was very unfortunate. But 
we failed to tell the American people, and Congressman Sensenbrenner 
has pointed out, that the gun used in that assault was not covered in 
this legislation at all. That was a different weapon, and that the most 
important thing was the perpetrator or the alleged perpetrator who has 
been apprehended had been arrested for a gun violation some weeks 
before and had been released.
  In fact, if we had not abolished the mandatory sentencing that was in 
place at the time, or just prior to that, the perpetrator of that crime 
or the alleged perpetrator of that crime would be in prison and would 
not have been there robbing a bank.
  So we are trying again through deception to say that if we control 
firearms in this country, if we will just enact one more gun control 
act, maybe it will be 22,011, that will be the solution; we are going 
to try to make it more illegal to use a gun in that particular crime. 
This is the deception that I am talking about. This is keeping your 
attention on one side while we put $28 billion of programs, almost 
half, according to Mr. Moore of the Cato Institute, we would have 
roughly half of that go to social programs that should never be in a 
crime bill.
  I would like to mention one last item in the area of what I think is 
where we need to be more straightforward and less deceptive. I am 
looking at Time magazine. It is the last issue, the D-day issue, that 
was put out. Inside, four or five pages inside, they have a card that 
they have placed inside the book that says that Time staffers will be 
on Capitol Hill periodically while the U.S. Congress is in session. The 
purpose is to inform individual subscribers how their Senators and 
Representatives vote on key pieces of legislation and to advise readers 
of future votes, thereby providing them with an opportunity to 
influence the outcome.
  Now, I think publishing how we vote in this body is very important. I 
wish Time would publish every vote of this Congress. I wish they would 
put it in a section where people could see it. I wish major newspapers 
in our districts would do that, not just on a piece every now and then, 
but a synopsis of each bill and how we vote, but they put a card so 
that you can write your Congressman about health care, and in that they 
give you a preference to pick one of the health care plans.
  There are seven health care plans before us now ranging from those 
most liberal, being the McDermott plan, the Clinton, and Cooper plans, 
over to those that I think are conservative, the Gramm, Rowland, 
Bilirakis, Michel; Gramm, Rowland, Bilirakis perhaps being on the more 
conservative side. That is a spectrum. That is reality. I am not saying 
which one you favor, but I am here to tell you that this magazine in 
asking you to send to your legislator which health plan you think is 
most important gave you only the liberal plans. They did not talk about 
the other plans. You get to pick the McDermott plan or the Clinton plan 
or the Cooper plan. You do not get to pick anything else unless you 
write it in on the side somewhere.

  Then it talks about welfare, that new programs should be paid for by 
cuts in aid to legal immigrants. What about cuts in aid to illegal 
immigrants? We are paying hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to 
illegal immigrants, and I think that is what people are concerned 
about. Most people support legal immigration in this country. It is the 
great flow of illegal immigration that gives them concern.
  Now, this presentation in this magazine hopefully is an effort to get 
people understanding what is happening in government. They cannot 
understand if they only get the liberal side.
  This magazine and other publications owe it the American people to 
show a full spread of health legislation that is before us and to show 
the fact that there are other options for legislation. To do otherwise 
is deceptive.
  Now, I will be glad to yield momentarily to the gentlewoman from 
Colorado.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. I thank the gentleman for allowing me to come in with 
the other side.
  But I really want to say I think the gentleman's words about this 
being deception and other such things are very, very out of line when 
you look at this bill.
  First of all, let me tell you we do up death penalty crimes and 
procedures. It establishes the death penalty for any number of Federal 
crimes including first-degree murder, kidnaping, taking hostages, 
drive-by shootings, carjackings. I am reading out of the bill.

                              {time}  1920

  The gentleman did not yield to me. If you would let me finish, I will 
finish my statement and yield.
  Madam Speaker, the gentleman has been castigating this bill as a do-
nothing bill.
  Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, I reclaim my time.
  Madam Speaker, I would remind the gentlewoman that the National 
Association of District Attorneys point out that this bill would 
effectively abolish the death penalty. The fact that we may add extra 
categories of the death penalty use inside is meaningless if we are in 
fact abolishing the death penalty with this legislation.

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