[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 67 (Friday, May 22, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H3940-H3941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    CONGRESS CAN ENACT LEGISLATION TO PREVENT ACCESS TO WEAPONS FOR 
                                CHILDREN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, yesterday for the seventh time in the 2 
years that I have been in Congress we have been witness to what can 
only be described as a massacre on one of America's schoolyards, for 
the seventh time in less than 2 years.
  This experience struck a little close to home because it was in my 
State of Oregon. I am finding already the connections with family and 
friends of people who knew people who were victims of this event.
  But in a sense, I hope all of us in this country who look at those 
anguished faces, the terror-stricken young people, the sense of what 
was happening in what should be a sanctuary for our youth, causes us in 
Congress to reflect on what we are prepared to do to try and make a 
difference.
  Last fall we were unable to secure the right for Members of this 
assembly to vote on a simple piece of legislation in the juvenile crime 
bill that would have provided for child access protection against 
access to guns. This is not something that is some sort of bizarre, 
hard-edged gun control proposal. These efforts have already been 
successful in 15 American States, starting with the State of Florida, 
to make it clear to gun owners at the point of purchase that they have 
a responsibility to keep that deadly weapon from the hands of children. 
It requires the person who sells the gun to make available at point of 
purchase a lockbox or a trigger lock.
  We reflect on what happened almost exactly 2 months ago today in 
Jonesboro, Arkansas, where there was another massacre in a schoolyard. 
Those two young men who are allegedly the people who inflicted that 
attack tried first to get the guns from one of the parents' homes. They 
even tried using a blowtorch, but because it was in a lockbox, they 
could not get access to it. Their next stop was at the home of someone 
who had the guns readily available to them, and the rest was history. 
Five people were dead.
  There is no reason that we in this Chamber have to sit back and 
assume that there is nothing we can do to make America safer for our 
children. Is it going to take an example like this in the home district 
of some member of leadership that has denied the House the right, and 
then be accountable to people they know personally because of a 
massacre?

                              {time}  1545

  If it makes a difference stopping one of these multiple tragedies, it 
will be worth it. Survey research indicates that over 80 percent of the 
American public support this legislation. I have been involved with a 
voluntary program with my sheriff in Multnomah County, Portland, 
Oregon, Dan Nolle, who has been so enthusiastic supporting lockbox 
initiatives that he has decreed that every deputy who takes a loaded 
gun home at night has a lockbox.
  There are things that we can do to make sure that this is not 
something that is replicated across America. I would hope that the 
leadership of this Chamber would look into their heart and soul and 
relinquish for a moment and allow the Members of the House to vote on 
noncontroversial, meaningful proposals that will reduce the carnage of 
gun violence in this country. Our young people deserve it.

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