[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 121 (Monday, August 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE CRIME BILL

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the crime bill. I 
do so as a Californian, as the former mayor of a large California city, 
and as a U.S. Senator. I also do so with extreme pride in what I saw 
happen this weekend in the House of Representatives. I sat glued to my 
television screen yesterday as I watched Members of the House stand and 
come forward for very short remarks--generally in the vicinity of 1 
minute--to tell how and why they were going to vote on this very 
important bill.
  What I saw and heard, Mr. President, was a new kind of 
bipartisanship. Members of the so-called opposition party came forward 
to say: ``Yes, this bill is important and, yes, we have had our 
differences, but we were called into the room to meet with Democrats 
and to reconcile those differences, and now, 46 of us can stand up and 
vote affirmatively for this bill.''
  I am hopeful, Mr. President, that this same spirit of bipartisanship 
will prevail in the Senate this afternoon, tomorrow and throughout the 
debate on the crime bill conference report, because I believe that this 
is an extraordinarily important bill.
  I know when I ran for mayor--this was a long time ago, back in 1979--
San Francisco had a spiraling homicide rate and a spiraling crime rate. 
I ran on the commitment to bring the police department up to its fully 
authorized strength, and to reduce response time by a squad car to an 
A-priority call to 2 minutes. It took me a number of years to get 
there, but I was able to increase the size of the police department to 
its fully authorized strength and was able to lower response time to 2 
minutes. In the course of doing so, we reduced crime in San Francisco 
by 27 percent.
  Why did we take that approach? We did so because if you can get an 
officer to a crime, you can find witnesses to interview who have not 
disappeared, evidence that is not cold and, as a result, a better 
chance of making an arrest and sustaining a successful prosecution.
  That result is what this crime bill--an important crime bill for law 
enforcement all across this Nation--will facilitate. And that is why 
the rank and file of virtually every police department and virtually 
every chief of police in America have come together to say, ``We 
support this crime bill. We need the resources it will provide us.''
  It is correct, Mr. President, that the crime bill does not fully fund 
100,000 police officers for 6 years. It will, however, provide matching 
funds to local jurisdictions all over America to give them the 
financial boost they need to expand their police departments with brand 
new police officers. The bill says, in essence, that the future is 
community policing, police who walk beats.
  I doubled the number of beat cops while I was mayor in San Francisco. 
I found that community policing works because the police who walk the 
streets know the bad guys. They know when outside criminals invade 
their neighborhoods, neighborhoods whose residents they know by their 
first names. People come to know and trust their local police officer 
as a human being, not as someone who is unknown to them, but someone 
who is part of their neighborhood, whom they respect, and with whom 
they can share confidences and information. And this yields arrests and 
it produces safety.
  Mr. President, I also rise this morning to thank the Members of this 
Senate who were part of the conference committee and, in particular, 
the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Joseph Biden of Delaware, 
who--with motivation, staying power and integrity--did a superior job, 
I think, and in crafting this bill. Senator Hatch, ranking member of 
the Judiciary Committee also deserves our thanks.
  I also want to express special thanks to two other members of the 
conference committee: Senators Metzenbaum and DeConcini for their work, 
not only in building a solid significant bill, but for their 
coauthorship and unflagging support of the assault weapons legislation. 
They stood up for it and they kept it intact as the America public has 
demanded.
  Before turning to the issue of assault weapons, Mr. President, I 
would like to discuss for a moment the key differences between the 
crime bill as approved by the Senate, the initial conference report, 
and the final report approved by a bipartisan majority of the House of 
Representatives last night.
  Law enforcement: When the bill left our Senate, there was a total of 
$12.236 billion reserved for law enforcement at all levels of 
government. The final bill increases such funding by $291 million for 
law enforcement, for a total of $13.451 billion. So law enforcement is 
up in this final bill.
  Prisons: When the bill left the Senate it included $6.5 billion in it 
for prisons. As recrafted by the conference committee and approved by 
the House yesterday, it had $9.07 billion in it for prisons. That is an 
increase of $1.4 billion.
  With regard to prevention programs, those of us who have worked in 
the big cities of America know that some work better than ours. We also 
know, however, that you have to fight crime in the streets every day 
before it happens, not just in the jails and courtrooms and prisons of 
our Nation after crime has already been committed. We must give our 
children alternatives to a life on the streets and the death and 
destruction that too often these days accompanies it.
  For prevention, when the bill left the Senate, it provided $9.512 
billion. Yesterday, that amount was decreased by the bipartisan 
conference by $1.695 billion to $7.054 billion. So the bill is down in 
prevention programs, many of which have been combined into a block 
grant of $377 million. Communities, mayors, boards of supervisors, and 
city councils can allocate those funds as their local priorities 
dictate.
  In sum then, the bill is down nearly $1.7 billion for prevention. It 
is up $1.4 billion for prisons, up $291 million for law enforcement. 
The total cost of the bill is $30.205 billion. The conferees have 
crafted, and the House has approved by a bipartisan majority, a 
balanced bill that--in my view will reduce crime in America.
  My hope, Mr. President, is that the spirit of bipartisan cooperation 
and commitment to producing a crime bill that triumphed yesterday in 
the House will inform the debate that we have begun in the Senate. 
There is no doubt in my mind that people of this country want this 
bill, and there is no doubt in my mind that this bill will be helpful 
to communities all across this Nation.
  For California alone, this bill means the possibility, if local 
jurisdictions are willing to maintain their shares, of 10,000 
additional police officers. For one of the most deeply troubled and 
crime-plagued cities in America, Los Angeles, this bill could mean more 
than 1,500 additional community police. That is a big deal. Truly it is 
a big deal. If you have 1,500 more police officers you are able to put 
on the streets, that means more arrests, that means faster response 
time, that means better evidence, that means more successful 
convictions, and that means that the bad guys are taken off of the 
streets.
  Finally, Mr. President, I believe that one of the difficult parts for 
some in this crime bill has been legislation Senators Metzenbaum, 
DeConcini, and I authored in this Senate--the legislation which had to 
do with assault weapons. Although no comprehensive statistics are 
maintained by the FBI or Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, I 
accept that assault weapons are used in a comparatively small 
proportion of gun crimes perpetrated in this Nation. But that does not 
tell the real story. Something is happening in America that I first 
noted in the early 1980's.
  It began for me in 1984 when James Huberty walked into a McDonald's 
drive-in restaurant with an Uzi and blasted away at the dinner hour; 21 
people were killed and 19 were wounded as they sat enjoying their 
burgers and fries. I distinctly remember thinking at the time that I 
never expected such a crime in California. During the 6 years that I 
sat on a parole board in the 1960's and reviewed cases and set 
sentences, there were no crimes like this. There were no assault weapon 
crimes.
  Five years later, a drifter named Patrick Purdy purchased an AK-47 
assault rifle, walked onto a Stockton, CA, schoolyard, and just 
indiscriminately began firing. He mowed down 34 children, killing 5 of 
them.
  Later the same year, assault weapon invaded the workplace--at a 
printing plant in Kentucky, an employee upset at losing his job 
strapped on an AK-47, two MAC-11 assault pistols and six handguns and 
began blowing his former coworkers away. Eight were killed and twelve 
were injured.
  Massacres like this one have since been repeated in post offices and 
firms across America, no more notoriously than just over a year ago on 
the `secure' 31st floor of a high-rise building at 101 California 
Street in San Francisco. In that now infamous rampage, a disturbed and 
disgruntled client walked in with twin Intratec TEC DC-9 assault 
pistols. When the shooting finally stopped, eight lay dead and six 
others were wounded. Can any of us forget the taped voice of a young 
woman named Michelle Scully talking to a 911 operator as she held her 
dying husband, alternately begging him not to die and pleading with the 
operator saying, ``Please come. My husband is dying, I can't stop the 
bleeding.''

  As my staff and I began to research news stories about assault 
weapons by computer, we found that we could only pull such reports from 
papers in about two-thirds of the United States. But even with that 
partial sample, one fact that came quickly to light truly shocked me. 
What I saw was that assault weapons were becoming the weapon of choice 
of youngsters in our Nation--youngsters.
  I later talked with a woman in Virginia by the name of Byrl Phillips-
Taylor, whose son was killed by another youngster who was younger, just 
jealous of him, with an assault weapon, just mowed down and killed with 
an AK-47. I also met another mother from Seattle, who had just moved 
her child to what she thought was a safer school district. Her daughter 
was standing in front of the school. Young people in a car came driving 
by with an assault weapon, firing indiscriminately, and a 16-year-old 
girl's life was snuffed out.
  Youngsters who used to end fights by bloodying someone's nose now 
settle grievances--real and imagined--with assault weapons. Rambo is 
alive and well in young America.
  I believe, Mr. President, that many if not most of the votes against 
the crime bill last night in the House, the hidden votes, were cast by 
Members who, rather than side with the chiefs of police and the police 
officers of this Nation, capitulated to the National Rifle Association 
instead. I say to my colleagues in the Senate, with respect, that we in 
this body cannot ignore the police of America who are fighting a battle 
in which they are outgunned.
  I heard a graphic example from those front lines recently, Mr. 
President. The women of the House and the Senate held a joint press 
conference last week. I had dedicated an earlier press conference to a 
police sergeant in Houston, TX, by the name of George Rodriguez. At 
that time, he lay dying from multiple bullet wounds inflicted by a MAC-
11 assault pistol. Thankfully, he pulled through and was able to join 
us to tell us his story from the front lines.
  He told us that outside Houston he had made a routine traffic stop. 
He pulled up to the car, left the car, and walked up to the automobile 
he was stopping. The man just cracked the door open, pointed the 
assault weapon outside, did not turn around and did not aim, and fired 
a burst of bullets in seconds, some of which hit Sergeant Rodriguez. 
Two are still lodged in his chest.
  That weapon was this weapon called an M-11. And that weapon had a big 
clip. One of the problems with all of these weapons is that they come 
equipped with clips of 20 or 30 bullets, but you can buy clips that fit 
into them that are up to 100 bullets. Therefore, no one has a chance to 
get the weapon from you and they become cop killers.
  Assault rifles kill cops even more effectively than pistols like the 
MAC-11. I learned this when Christy Lynn Hamilton, a 45-year-old rookie 
police officer in Los Angeles--and mother of two --was killed with an 
AR-15. The muzzle velocity of that gun, and many other rifles, is such 
that the bullet went through the car door, and can easily pierce 
standard bulletproof vests. That is why police are very strongly 
opposed to these weapons, because they are outgunned by them. They have 
no chance. They have no chance to draw their service revolver. And when 
they draw their service revolver, they have to aim it. With most of 
these weapons, you can just spray fire and not aim.
  So the question comes: Do we want our young people to be able to have 
these weapons? Do we want the unstable amongst us to be able to gain 
these weapons? Are our streets, our schools, our playgrounds, our parks 
going to be safer with these weapons or without these weapons?
  I think the answer is very clear. The Senate agreed that the answer 
was clear. The House of Representatives has debated it fully and has 
decided that America, as a Nation, is better off if these weapons are 
not manufactured, if they are not sold, and if they are not 
transferred.
  The hidden agenda behind much of the opposition to the crime bill 
has, in my view, come from people who say, ``We have a right to have 
these weapons.'' Then what we would say, in return, is, if this 
legislation passes, take this legislation to the courts and let the 
courts decide. Does the Second Amendment in fact say weapons of war, 
weapons made solely for military use--and every one of these weapons is 
made solely for military use to kill large numbers of people in close 
combat--provide every individual with a constitutional right to own 
these weapons or does Government have a responsibility to regulate 
their use to prohibit their use when they believe the welfare of the 
majority is protected?
  I know one thing that this legislation will achieve in the future if 
given the chance. Our children will not be able to own these weapons. 
Drive-by shooters will not be able to buy these weapons. Gangs will not 
be able to buy these weapons. Grievance killers will not be able to buy 
these weapons. And I think that is a singular improvement.
  Mr. President, as part of a group that began to work on the health 
bill in a bipartisan way--where sometimes up to 20 Senators, about half 
of us Democratic and about half of us Republican, sat down in a room 
without very much air and talked about health care--I came to really 
see the value of working in a bipartisan way to solve big problems, of 
being able to listen to each other, move as close to the center as 
possible, and go on from there.
  It seems to me that is what happened in the conference committee and 
in the House of Representatives on this crime bill. There was a lot of 
debate, a lot of discussion; debate that went on all night--at least 
three nights of which I am aware--that produced a bill that was 
bipartisan to a great extent. And I think, and I am hopeful, that will 
be the case in this body later.
  I say to my colleagues, this bill has been debated. The House of 
Representatives, bringing the perspective of 435 Members, each one 
representing about a half million people, debated the bill, amended the 
bill, passed a rule, defeated a motion to recommit yesterday, and 
finally passed a crime bill.
  It seems to me that the people of this Nation want us to get on with 
other business. They do not want us to replicate the same debate again.
  So I am very hopeful that we will see the same bipartisan spirit in 
this body that existed in the other body and that we will see the 
politics of consensus rather than division prevail in the Senate. That 
those Republicans who voted with us on the crime bill when it left the 
Senate will once again be proud to stand and say, ``I am helping this 
Nation. I am putting police on the streets. I am building prisons. I am 
providing program funds to mayors and city councils and boards of 
supervisors. I am aiming to increase border control. I am battling 
against an increase in violence against women with this bill, and I 
will vote `aye' when the crucial moment is at hand.''
  Once again, Mr. President, let me thank the conferees, particularly 
the Senate conferees and let me express my hope that today, or tomorrow 
at the latest, we will be able to send to the President the toughest, 
the smartest, the most balanced and the most effective anticrime bill 
in the history of this Nation for a people who very badly need the 
help.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and suggest the absence 
of a quorum.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Dorgan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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