[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 109 (Tuesday, August 9, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE CRIME BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Poshard). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Nadler] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today because one of the true 
achievements of this Congress, Federal passage of a comprehensive ban 
on military-style assault weapons, is in danger of being dropped from 
the crime bill conference report. I believe this would be a terrible 
mistake--one which would cost the lives of countless innocent 
Americans. The Members of this House must stand firm and not allow this 
important life-saving measure to be dropped on the altar of political 
accommodations.
  There are, I realize, many in this body who have serious concerns 
about the report of the conference committee. Some members will, I 
know, vote against this bill on final passage. I myself served as a 
conferee. I declined to sign the final conference report because the 
Racial Justice Act, which would have provided defendants with the legal 
right to challenge the racist application of the death penalty--which 
is widespread and fully documented by our own Civil Rights 
Subcommittee, by the General Accounting Office, and by numerous 
scholars--was dropped by the majority of the conference committee 
despite its clear merit.
  These defects notwithstanding, the deletion of the assault weapons 
ban would be an unforgivable last minute maneuver. Military-style 
weapons, like the Street Sweeper, the TEC-9 and the AK-47, are 
favorites of street gangs, drug dealers, cop killers and the 
perpetrators of indiscriminate murder.
  We must stand up for the police officers in Brooklyn who were 
outgunned by drug dealers armed with a TEC-9. In Buffalo, there were 
four assault weapons incidents and two assault weapons related killings 
in the first 4 months of 1994 alone.
  Mr. Speaker, we must not allow the crime bill to come to a vote 
without this essential, life-saving provision. Children are being 
murdered on the streets of my city and in every other part of this 
Nation by weapons which have no business in private hands.
  The time has come to put a stop to the killing. We will have, I am 
sure, a spirited debate on the merits of the crime bill, but we have an 
obligation to our constituents to ensure that the crime bill does not 
come to a vote without the assault weapons ban reported by the 
conferees.

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