[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 41 (Friday, March 22, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H2670-H2671]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN

  (Mr. ACKERMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in utter amazement that we 
are even going to consider repealing the assault weapons ban. Here are 
provisions of law designed to keep weapons of war off of our streets 
and to prevent citizens from being slaughtered and our law enforcement 
officials from being outgunned. Yet the majority party insists we would 
be better off without the ban. I find that difficult to believe.
  Mr. Speaker, when President Bush banned the importation of assault 
weapons in 1989, the number of such rifles traced to crime dropped by 
45 percent. In the year of the ban on domestic assault weapons, the 
effect of such attacks has dropped an additional 18 percent. Despite 
these encouraging results, assault weapons still pose a major danger to 
Americans, particularly to our law enforcement officers,

[[Page H2671]]

and I for one cannot turn my back on the valiant police officers in my 
district in New York City and Long Island.
  Mr. Speaker, I beg my colleagues, do not defile the memory of those 
who died in the massacre on the Long Island Railroad. Do not sell your 
vote for the blood money of the NRA. Listen to the painful and 
courageous cries of the victims, your constituents and our police 
officers, law enforcement officials, and not to the special interests 
and the blood money of the NRA.

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