[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 119 (Saturday, August 20, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 20, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                HAVE A SEPARATE VOTE ON THE WEAPONS BAN

  (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, the hangup is not about pork, it is not 
about midnight basketball; the hangup of the U.S. Congress is about 
politics and it is about guns. And any Congress that cannot tackle the 
politics of guns in America is a Congress that cannot tackle the crime 
problem in America.
  Mr. Speaker, I am a former sheriff. I own a semiautomatic weapon, and 
I do not want anybody to take my gun away. But there is a realistic 
concern that Congress has to remove this firepower and killing machine 
from our streets--25,000 murders per year.
  Congress is being lobbied from all corners of America except one: The 
people buried in those cemeteries in record numbers around America have 
not made one single call to the Congress of the United States of 
America.
  That is what the issue is. I recommend today if that is a hangup, 
take it from and remove it from the crime bill, pass the crime bill, 
and when we come back, on its merits vote on the gun measure and see 
who has the courage in America.

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