[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4324-S4325]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CRIME IN AMERICA

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Nebraska for 
yielding the time, and particularly the distinguished Senator from 
Indiana for interrupting the flow of the discussion, because there are 
matters of great importance that are under review.
  But I would like to talk for a minute about an incident that took 
place in the last couple of days that has been across the newspapers in 
this country and through all means of communication--television, radio, 
and so forth. It is about an incident in Montclair, NJ, which is where 
my home has been since 1968. My children were brought up in this 
community, all four of them, and there is still a Lautenberg house in 
the town. The community is shocked by the turn of events--four people 
killed, four innocent people, two who worked in the post office, long-
time employees, and two residents of the community, one I am told, 38 
years of age, and one 59 years of age, customers of the post office. 
They were on an innocent piece of business, and suddenly carnage broke 
out. It is established that a 9 mm weapon was used, and the culprit has 
been captured and is now in custody. This afternoon, the U.S. attorney 
and other law enforcement people will be making a full statement.
  Mr. President, we have seen violence all over this country ourselves, 
gun violence, people shot randomly. As a matter of fact, unless it gets 
to be in your neighborhood or your community, or you know someone who 
is the victim, it is almost greeted with a yawn. We watch the 
incredible spectacle of Colin Ferguson, the man who murdered and 
assaulted people on the Long Island Railroad, make a fool out of the 
system, and he is ready now perhaps this day for sentencing.
  But I watched in shock as some of the victims' families addressed 
this individual, trying to describe their pain and their anguish, 
including one person that I know, also from New Jersey, a man named 
Jake LaCicero, who lost his daughter, Amy, on that train. She was in 
her late twenties, innocently traveling back and forth to work from 
where she then lived, and she died needlessly.
  And not too long ago, at a post office in Richwood, NJ, a quiet, 
high-income community, principally commuters, people who took pride in 
their community and people who believed so deeply in America and the 
American way--the town that I am talking about now, Montclair, NJ, is a 
fairly high-income 
[[Page S4325]]  community, a fully integrated community, with a 
minority African-American portion, about 30 percent, living side by 
side, house to house, and everybody getting along well.
  Mr. President, last weekend, we heard about an incident--and I had 
the occasion to visit the victim, a woman named Gilespie, 66 years old, 
who had her car hijacked by two young men who, as she described it to 
me, is an incredibly courageous woman, fighting back against all odds, 
because she was shot right almost in the middle of her face just at the 
eyebrow line. She had a black-and-blue mark. The bullet is still 
apparently lodged in her head. She will have lost the sight of one eye, 
but she is going to live. And she is remarkably strong.
  I was there to visit a trauma unit at our University Hospital and 
Medical School in Newark. She said she cannot understand why she was 
shot. She said, ``I was ready to surrender my car.'' It was in the 
evening. She went to visit her daughter in the suburbs. She said, ``I 
was ready to surrender my car. I was ready to surrender my 
pocketbook.'' She said, ``I did not want to fight with these two 
fellows.'' She said not a word was exchanged. The only thing that was 
exchanged was a gunshot, a gun pointed at her head, and the trigger 
pulled. And she had enough strength and enough courage to get to a 
telephone and the police, in quick response, from Montclair, NJ, were 
able to capture two young men.
 These men, by the way, Mr. President, had no previous record of 
criminality--young men; one was 17, one was 19. One already finished 
with high school; the other was in high school. These were not the 
traditional criminals. These were not the people who we talk about when 
we say, ``Guns do not kill people; people kill people.''

  Mr. President, we are hearing ruminations on this floor about 
removing the ban that exists on assault weapons--a ban that was fought 
over day after day, hour after hour before it became essentially a part 
of the crime bill that was passed and signed last year by the President 
of the United States. We hear now that that bill is being reviewed, 
perhaps, with the purpose of removing the ban on assault weapons. It 
almost is shocking beyond belief that we, at this point in time, could 
be talking about removal, repeal of a ban on weapons that were designed 
to kill people, to be used by military and law enforcement people. And 
we are discussing it because the NRA has a gun at the head of this 
Congress. The NRA has a gun at the head of this Senate. The gun reaches 
into the pocketbook, Mr. President. That is where the power comes from. 
It is the power of the purse used to pervert and to twist the 
intentions of the American people, and to analyze the second amendment 
in such a way that it permits every loony in the world, in the States, 
and in this country of ours to get their hands on a gun. The Brady bill 
was fought against so hard here. I read in the paper recently, it 
stopped 45,000 applications for gun ownership from being executed. And 
we fought tooth and nail here. It was like a battle over whether or not 
we continue to operate as a democratic society. We fought over that, 
and--how many escaped we do not know, but 45,000 people were denied 
applications for gun ownership.
  Mr. President, I do not know what it is going to take to stop this 
gun mad necessary. I hope it does not visit families here. Though, we 
have had it. The Senator from North Dakota watched his wife being taken 
away by a man with a gun at her head, not far from the Capitol, where 
we have multiple police departments. He was powerless because the man 
had a gun and was able to blow his wife's head off. What is it going to 
take for our society to respond and say ``no'' to the NRA, that we are 
not going to let you own this country, we are not going to let you own 
this Congress. We ought to turn out every Congressman and Senator who 
supports the NRA, unless there is a change in their attitude.
  Mr. President, it is a terrible day, terrible occasion when we have 
to reminisce about those who lost their lives. Anybody who saw the 
victims talking to Colin Ferguson this morning, where one woman who 
lost her husband and her son was shot, to be permanently disabled, this 
young man weeping uncontrollably because his life had been torn apart. 
I hope that we do not have to recite in the years ahead those who are 
victims of gunfire--random gunfire, in many cases, and botched 
burglaries.
  Mr. President, people say that it is not guns, that it is people who 
do the killing. But if you look at the United Kingdom, look at Japan, 
countries westernized in their customs like ours, and you see that in 
our country 13.5 thousand people died from gunshots, and in the other 
countries just mentioned, the numbers are less than 100. One of those 
populations is two-thirds of ours--Japan. I believe they had less than 
100 people die by gunshot. In the United Kingdom the numbers were less 
than 100. In Canada they were less than 50. But we here in the United 
States, who want to protect the rights under the second amendment for 
people to own guns, are not standing up for people to be able to live 
freely, to walk down the street. In Los Angeles, it is said that most 
of the gunshot damage done is done by drive-by, random shootings. If 
there are no guns around, I assure you that we would not see the 
damage, because it is awful hard to have a drive-by clubbing or a 
drive-by stabbing.
  It is time that we woke up to the problem that we have here and get 
rid of this menace for the safety and well-being of our children, our 
families, our homes, our stores, and our businesses, and get on with 
letting this democracy perform as it should.
  I thank the Senators from Nebraska and Indiana for giving me these 
few minutes.


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