[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 136 (Friday, October 2, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11365-S11368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ONE GUN A MONTH FORUM

 Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to inform my 
colleagues of a forum I held on September 2 on the deadly problem of 
gun trafficking. I am pleased that Senator Robb and Senator Sarbanes 
were able to join me at the forum.
  As my colleagues know, I have introduced S. 466, the Anti-Gun 
Trafficking Act. The Judiciary Committee has not held hearings on this 
legislation, and I thought it was important to gather expert testimony 
on the issue. The testimony I heard at the forum has made me even more 
determined to pass this sensible legislation and make it more difficult 
for gun traffickers to obtain and sell their deadly merchandise on our 
streets.
  The witnesses at this forum included: Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, 
who is also the chair of the Conference of Mayor's Task Force on Gun 
Violence; James and Sarah Brady; Captain R. Lewis Vass of the Virginia 
State Police, and Captain Thomas Bowers of the Maryland State Police.
  We also heard from a panel of youth from right here in our nation's 
capital who live with gun violence everyday in their communities. They 
were John Schuler, Kenisha Green and Quanita Favorite.
  In this statement I will summarize what happened during the forum. 
But I will also be including, during the next few days, testimony from 
the witnesses so that my colleagues and the public will have a record 
of their views.
  Mr. President, as a result of the Brady Act, we have helped prevent 
thousands of guns from getting into the hands of the wrong people. 
Since the Brady Act went into effect in 1994, more than 242,000 handgun 
purchases have been denied to convicted felons, fugitives, drug addicts 
and other dangerous persons. The Domestic Violence Gun Ban in the Brady 
Act, which I sponsored and which went into effect in

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1996, has prevented more than 6,800 firearms sales to people convicted 
of abusing a spouse or child.
  However, the Brady Law has not completely stopped the flow of 
handguns to those who should not have them. Gun traffickers continue to 
supply an illegal gun market by buying large quantities of guns in 
states with lax gun laws and then reselling them on the streets--often 
in cities and states with strict gun laws.
  If these traffickers can not legally buy a gun themselves, or if they 
do not want to have their name turn up if the gun is later found at a 
crime scene, they find others to make the purchases for them. The 
trafficker pays a straw purchaser, in money or drugs, to buy 25, 50 or 
more handguns at a time and then resells the guns to those who 
otherwise could not buy them--such as convicted felons, drug addicts, 
or children.
  In fact, the Maryland State Police official testified that multiple 
guns purchased by straw purchasers were the source of the majority of 
firearms used in the commission of violent crime.
  My bill would make it far more difficult and less profitable for 
traffickers to conduct their deadly business, by prohibiting an 
individual from buying more than one handgun a month. We know this 
approach works because three states--Virginia, Maryland, South 
Carolina--have passed one-gun-a month laws and the results have been 
dramatic. Gun trafficking from these states has plunged.
  For instance, officers from the Virginia State Police testified that 
after Virginia passed its one-handgun-a-month limit in 1993, the number 
of crime guns traced back to Virginia from the Northeast dropped by 
nearly 40 percent. Prior to one-gun-a-month, Virginia had been among 
the leading supplier of weapons to the so-called ``Iron Pipeline'' that 
feed the arms race on the streets of Northeastern cities.
  In 1995, the Virginia Crime Commission conducted a comprehensive 
study of the one-handgun-a-month limit to determine if the law had 
achieved its purpose. That study found, and I quote, ``Virginia's one-
gun-a-month statute . . . has had its intended effect of reducing 
Virginia's status as a source state for gun trafficking.''
  Maryland and South Carolina showed similar results. In South 
Carolina, according to the same Crime Commission report: ``Prior to the 
passage of the one-gun-a-month law, South Carolina was a leading source 
state for guns traced to New York City, accounting for 39% of guns 
recovered in criminal investigations. Following the implementation of 
the law, South Carolina virtually dropped off of the statistical list 
of source states for firearms trafficked to the northeast.''
  Maryland--the most recent state to pass a limit on handgun 
purchases-- passed its law in 1996 and has already seen the results. 
According to testimony from the Maryland State Police:
  ``In 1991 Maryland was nationally ranked second in terms of suppliers 
of crime guns to the City of New York. By 1997, one year after the 
passage of Maryland's one gun a month law, Maryland moved out of the 
top ten suppliers of crime guns to New York City.''
  And most significant is the drop in crime that has followed enactment 
of limits on handgun sales. For example, in Virginia, the number of 
murders, robberies and aggravated assaults committed with a firearm 
significantly dropped after 1993 when the limit went into effect. Of 
course it should not come as a surprise to anyone that violent crime 
would drop when it becomes more difficult for criminals to get a 
handgun. Handguns are the gun of choice for criminals--they are cheap 
and concealable. Of all murders committed with firearm, about 80% are 
committed with a handgun.
  Limits on handgun purchases, while disrupting gun traffickers, have 
little or no effect on the sportsman or law abiding citizen because a 
very small percent of all handgun purchases involve multiple sales. For 
example, in 1991, Virginia State Police reported only 6% of handgun 
purchases were multiple sales. But of these, nearly 75% were semi-
automatic weapons, the weapon of choice among gun traffickers. Mayor 
Rendell testified that less than 1% of handgun purchasers in 
Philadelphia bought more than 12 handguns in a twelve month period.
  Let me put some human faces on this issue. As I said earlier, kids 
from the District of Columbia testified at my forum. And what they had 
to say was terrifying. Guns were an every day part of their lives. For 
these kids, D.C. does not stand for District of Columbia. It stands for 
Dodge City.
  These young people told us that guns are easy to get in their 
neighborhoods and schools. They call it getting strapped. And if you do 
not get strapped you might not make it through the day, they said.
  One young woman put it eloquently: ``It's not fair,'' she said. 
``Other kids get to go to college. We get to go to funerals. These 
people who sell guns are the real predators. They feed off our pain.''
  We must shut these predators down.
  Most sane people would ask, who could possibly need more than one 
handgun a month? The testimony at my forum gave the clear and obvious 
answer. Someone who should not have any at all. The only people who 
would ``need'' more than one gun a month are gun traffickers. It is the 
only way to make their deadly business profitable.
  The need for a national limit on handgun sales is clear. I hope this 
Congress has the courage to act in the interests of law abiding 
Americans. But I have my doubts. This Congress has defeated sensible 
proposals to try to make guns safer through mandated safety locks. This 
Congress has defeated legislation that would require adults to keep 
their guns locked and out of reach of children.
  I look forward to the day when this Congress listens to the American 
people instead of the gun lobby and the National Rifle Association. 
Poll after poll shows that Americans, including gun-owning Americans, 
want tougher controls on guns. A University of Chicago study in 1996 
found 85% support legislation mandating that all new handguns must be 
childproof, and 80% favors limiting handgun sales to one a month.
  We have heard a lot from Charlton Heston lately now that he is 
president of the National Rifle Association. But I sometimes think Mr. 
Heston forgets he is only an actor--not Moses--when he uses that superb 
voice of his in the service of the National Rifle Association.
  I would like to remind Mr. Heston of one of the last things Moses 
said to the children of Israel before he died.
  ``I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose 
life if you and your offspring would live.''
  Well, Mr. Heston, we choose life--for ourselves and our children. And 
we are going to fight the curse that gun traffickers have wrought upon 
cities, our schools and our streets.
  I urge my colleagues to listen to the American people; stop turning a 
blind eye to the daily destruction caused by guns in America. I urge my 
colleagues to have the will to do something to help the youth of 
America live without the daily sound of gunshots in their lives. I ask 
my colleagues to support this common sense approach to keep handguns 
out of the hands of criminals.
  Mr. President, I ask that the testimony of Mayor Edward Rendell be 
printed in the Record.
  The testimony follows:

Testimony of Mayor Edward G. Rendell, Forum on Handgun Violence and S. 
         466, ``The Anti-Gun Trafficking Act''--Talking Points


                      i. the scope of the problem

       We have a crisis in Philadelphia: Gun violence is out of 
     control, and the carnage it has created is unprecedented in 
     our City.
       The statistics are chilling: Between 1985 and 1995, deaths 
     by firearm rose 66 percent in Pennsylvania, and by 102 
     percent in Philadelphia. In 1995 there were 432 total 
     homicides in Philadelphia, and gun homicides represented a 
     staggering 77 percent of that number. In 1996, there were 414 
     total homicides, and killings by gun represented 81 percent 
     of that number. And last year, the gruesome trend continued: 
     of the 410 total homicides in Philadelphia, 339 of them--
     almost 83 percent--were due to gun violence. These numbers 
     are the highest of any city in the nation.
       For the City, there is one particularly horrifying element 
     to the growing plague of gun violence: More and more, kids 
     are doing the killing. In almost 15 percent of all 
     Philadelphia gun homicides over the last three years, a child 
     under age 18 was arrested for pulling the trigger. And worst 
     of all, kids are the victims, too: in 1995, 24 children were 
     shot to death; in 1996, the number was 25; and last year, 26 
     kids were killed by gunfire. Ladies and gentlemen, homicide 
     is now the leading cause of death among youths ages 16 to 21 
     in

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     Philadelphia. Compare this Boston, where no kids--zero--under 
     the age of 18 were killed by gunfire during the same period.
       The carnage caused by gun violence in Philadelphia doesn't 
     just show up in the murder statistics, either: More than half 
     of all robberies committed in Philadelphia are robberies at 
     the point of a gun. In Philadelphia last year, there were 
     11,938 robberies, and 53.7 percent were gun robberies. Almost 
     one-third of those arrested for these crimes were under the 
     age of 18.
       Of the 6,198 aggravated assaults in Philadelphia last year, 
     more than 36 percent involved a gun--a total of 2,279 
     shootings in one year. Almost 17 percent of those arrested 
     for these crimes were juveniles.
       In one bloody week earlier this year, our newspaper 
     headlines recorded the shooting deaths of eight people in 
     Philadelphia--five in one weekend alone. Among the victims: a 
     22-year-old man killed in a gun battle that erupted outside 
     the Palestra at the University of Pennsylvania after a high-
     school basketball championship game. Three others were 
     wounded in the melee, which took place in the middle of 33rd 
     Street as the crowd was leaving the game. In other cases, two 
     owners of a neighborhood pizzeria were gunned down in their 
     store; an elderly woman was shot to death during a robbery in 
     her own home; and a lawyer and his assistant were robbed and 
     executed in their Center City office.
       Though that week was particularly grim, it was by no means 
     one-of-a-kind. In fact, the situation is so bad that an 
     absence of murder actually became news last spring: In a 
     story about the Philadelphia murder rate, one local newspaper 
     reported that Philadelphia went 12 days without a homicide, 
     from April 24th to May 5th. As the paper noted: ``There had 
     not been a comparable killing-free stretch for at least 10 
     years. The next longest streak on record was eight days, in 
     1988.''


         ii. we have tried to address the problem in many ways

       Having been a prosecutor for most of my professional 
     career--I was the elected District Attorney of Philadelphia 
     from 1978 to 1986, and before that, I served as the Chief of 
     the Homicide Unit in the DA's office--I know a fair amount 
     about crime and the fear that it generates among good and 
     decent people in our communities. This is not an argument 
     about whether people have the right to own guns or not. 
     Rather, this is about stopping guns from getting into the 
     wrong hands, particularly criminals and children.
       I understand the need for comprehensive solutions to 
     fighting crime involve more than controlling the flow of 
     handguns in our City. For example, in my first term as 
     District Attorney of Philadelphia, I authored the death 
     penalty law in Pennsylvania, which withstood legal challenge 
     and today is being used with increasing frequency.
       In 1982, during my second term as DA, I authored 
     Pennsylvania's current mandatory sentencing law, which 
     created tough new mandatory jail terms for criminal 
     offenders, including a flat five-year mandatory sentence for 
     anyone convicted of using a firearm during the commission of 
     a felony.
       The results have meant longer sentences are being served in 
     Pennsylvania. Last year alone, the number of convictions for 
     gun offenses in Philadelphia almost doubled, and the number 
     of jail terms meted out for these convictions jumped by more 
     than 120 percent. Overall, the number of inmates in 
     Pennsylvania prisons has increased by almost 30 percent 
     since 1993 (26,060 inmates statewide in 1993, up to 34,534 
     inmates statewide by 1996.)
       We have tried through the enactment of state legislation in 
     Pennsylvania as recently a 1995. The Pennsylvania Uniform 
     Firearms Act (18 Pa.C.S. Sec. 6111(g)(5)) makes it a felony 
     to ``knowingly and intentionally'' sell or deliver a gun if 
     he or she has ``reason to believe'' that the gun is intended 
     to be used in the commission of a crime. But the problem has 
     been in proving that the seller acted ``knowingly or 
     intentionally,'' with reason to believe that the firearm was 
     intended for use in a crime. Proving intent is always 
     difficult; proving that someone acted knowingly, 
     intentionally and with reason to believe is practically 
     impossible. As a result, a law meant to limit a criminal's 
     access to guns in reality is used only very rarely, and as 
     such has had no practical effect on the effort to keep guns 
     out of the hands of criminals.


                      III. And We're Still Trying

       The statistics show the grim toll of gun violence in 
     Philadelphia, and these facts can be repeated in cities all 
     over America. They can be measured in starkly human terms: 
     the number of lives lost to gun violence, and the number of 
     lives ruined by it, either through injury (victims and 
     families) or incarceration (the perpetrators). But for cities 
     like Philadelphia, the cost of gun violence can be quantified 
     in dollars and cents too; Taking into account the enormous 
     burden that guns place on our health services, courts, 
     prisons, police, sheriffs, fire, pension, workers 
     compensation, our public schools, and social services, the 
     City estimates the cost of gun violence in Philadelphia is 
     $58.8 million a year.
       These statistics underscore the critical importance of 
     doing all we can to eliminate the flow of guns to the wrong 
     people: criminals, children, and those ``straw purchasers'' 
     who sell to them. That is why we pushed for tougher 
     sentences, for the death penalty, and for the construction of 
     new prisons to house those sentenced to longer jail terms.
       But the grim gun violence statistics keep climbing, showing 
     that what we've done hasn't been nearly enough.
       That's why we continue to do all that we can to stop the 
     violence, with initiatives like the successful effort to win 
     agreement with gun manufacturers to provide a child safety 
     lock with every handgun they sell. The industry is to be 
     commended for its willingness to act affirmatively to provide 
     child safety locks. They are an easy, affordable way to 
     reduce gun violence, and they are helping.
       That is why we also have launched a comprehensive public 
     education campaign in Philadelphia, targeting youngsters with 
     a message that focuses on violence reduction (I Can End 
     Violence) and specifically on carrying and using guns. These 
     messages are aimed for distribution through churches, rec 
     centers, and youth centers. In addition, we have launched a 
     public service ad campaign--``What Are You Shooting For?''--
     that sends that same message throughout the Greater 
     Philadelphia region, and we have garnered the assistance of 
     the local media in supporting this effort by broadcasting 
     these messages.
       The Philadelphia Police Department has changed the way it 
     does business with respect to handguns. A whole new series of 
     initiatives have been introduced to control the damage done 
     by criminals with handguns. These initiatives include: 
     Standard Interview Protocol for all gun offenders to 
     determine the origin of guns used in crimes; streamlining all 
     gun issues in the Police Department under one command; 
     aggressively serving warrants; zero tolerance for gun 
     offenders in high violent-crime areas; and more aggressively 
     tracing guns used in crimes, and cracking down on second 
     sales, with the help of the ATF.
       Working together, the ATF and the Philadelphia Police 
     Department have made terrific progress in tracking the 
     origins of guns used in the commission of crimes. Initially, 
     the joint ATF-PPD task force traced firearms recovered in 
     major crimes. Today, they trace all firearms linked to an 
     arrest, and soon, they will have the capability to trace all 
     firearms recovered in Philadelphia.
       As a result of these initiatives, the task force has 
     increased the number of arrests for gun violation 
     prosecutions by 25 percent, and that number continues to 
     rise. But again, to be successful in prosecuting those who 
     sell guns to criminals, we must prove that the seller 
     ``knowingly or intentionally'' sold the gun to someone he 
     knew was going to use it to commit a crime. In practice, it 
     is a difficult EGR standards to meet, especially since 
     neither the seller nor the buyer has any incentive to 
     testify to that effect. The seller clearly has no interest 
     in testifying that he knowingly sold a gun to a criminal, 
     or that he had reason to expect that it would be used in a 
     crime. And the criminal likewise has little incentive to 
     volunteer any inculpatory evidence whatsoever.
       As a result, despite the success of these efforts, we must 
     all do more.


                    iv. what the gun industry can do

       Gun manufacturers can help, too. Child safety locks were a 
     great move, but more must be done. I have asked the industry 
     to:
       (1) increase internal security--14,000 guns were stolen 
     from one manufacturer's plant in Southern California;
       (2) stop selling guns that are attractive to criminals but 
     have no legitimate use except to kill people: Saturday night 
     specials, armor piercing bullets, military assault weapons;
       (3) stop advertising that incorrectly suggests that people 
     are safer for having a gun in their homes; the New England 
     Journal of Medicine reports that bringing a gun into the home 
     leads to a three-fold increase in risk of homicide in the 
     home;
       (4) take the lead and oppose senseless restrictions that 
     impede investigation of gun crimes, such as obstruction of 
     the Brady form and multiple purchase form in 20 days, making 
     tracking infinitely more difficult. NOTE: even Ron Stewart of 
     Colt recently called for federalization of state laws 
     requiring a second set of serial numbers on weapons because, 
     as he said, ``isn't that a protective measure that prevents 
     illegal ownership of a firearm?''
       (5) A 1994 federal law banned further manufacture for 
     civilian use of clips or magazines holding more than 10 
     rounds of ammunition. Stop producing guns that accept 
     ``grandfathered'' magazines;
       (6) Develop technology to make illegal use almost 
     impossible, such as the production of ``personalized'' 
     handguns that can only be fired by their rightful owners. 
     This is the ultimate weapon against illegal use of handguns. 
     Last year, Colt unveiled a prototype personalized handgun for 
     police to prevent them from being shot with their own 
     weapons. This system should be developed ASAP for everyone, 
     police and civilians alike.
       The gun industry, working with the American Shooting Sports 
     Council, has agreed to join mayors from a variety of cities, 
     including Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, and St. Louis, in 
     the formation of a joint task force to come with initiatives, 
     by the fall of this year, to reduce handgun violence in 
     American cities. That is the kind of partnership we need to 
     substantively address the problem of handgun violence in our 
     cities.
       That is why I also urge federal support for Project Exile, 
     a partnership we have created with the National Rifle 
     Association in which Philadelphia would be used as a test 
     city to gauge the impact of federalizing every violation of 
     existing handgun laws. The idea is

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     simple: federally prosecute all handgun violations, and mete 
     out tough federal prison sentences for all convictions. It 
     has shown dramatic results in Richmond, Va., and I have no 
     doubt that it will reduce gun violence and the carnage that 
     accompanies it on the streets of Philadelphia. People on both 
     sides of the age-old gun debate have criticized this 
     partnership, but again, this is not about the Second 
     Amendment. This is not about the right to bear arms. We're 
     talking about stemming the flow of guns into the inner city, 
     where they are used by criminals and children to commit 
     crimes and destroy families. Thanks to the support of Sen. 
     Lautenberg and Sen. Specter, Congressional support for this 
     initiative will help us obtain the federal resources needed 
     to make the program a success. I have already been to the 
     White House to discuss Administration support for the 
     initiative, and I believe that it will be successful in that 
     regard.
       We are engaged in a war to reduce the carnage caused by gun 
     violence. And we must fight this fight on many fronts, and 
     sometimes with unusual allies. We have worked with the gun 
     industry, the NRA and its representatives, for one simple 
     reason: We need their help to reduce gun violence. And we are 
     still considering litigation to force gun manufacturers to 
     join the fight against gun violence if they do not do so 
     willingly.


          v. the need for federal one gun a month legislation

       If these initiatives are critical to our fight, then the 
     enactment of legislation is no less essential in the effort 
     to reduce gun violence. And that is why today's forum is 
     critically important: Whatever other initiatives are 
     implemented, we must develop Congressional support for S. 
     466, the federal Anti-Gun Trafficking Act sponsored by Sen. 
     Lautenberg. Because gun trafficking knows no state lines, 
     federal legislation--a uniform national standard limiting 
     handgun purchases--is the only effective way to combat this 
     problem.
       I have long advocated support for One Gun a Month, because 
     it is a matter of basic common sense. One Gun a Month deals 
     only with handguns, and does not interfere at all with a 
     citizen's right to maintain a firearm for home or personal 
     protection. Instead, One Gun a Month focuses on stopping 
     multiple purchases of handguns, because these are the guns 
     that ultimately wind up being resold on the streets of our 
     cities to criminals and children.
       Look at the statistics on gun sales in Pennsylvania. In 
     1996, there were 150,000 handgun sales statewide. During 
     roughly the same period, there were 38,338 guns sold in the 
     Philadelphia region alone. Of that number, roughly nine 
     percent of the purchasers bought nearly 30 percent of the 
     guns.
       What that means is that small numbers of people are buying 
     lots of guns, and our experience shows that is for only one 
     reason: to resell them on the street to people who use them 
     in the commission of crimes.
       One Gun a Month would limit purchasers to buying 12 guns a 
     year. I also support the so-called ``Collector's Exception,'' 
     which would permit bona fide gun collectors from the 
     legislation. As a result, for the overwhelming majority of 
     gun purchasers, only the 13th gun would be prohibited. Ladies 
     and gentlemen, legislation that proposes to ban handgun sales 
     only at the purchase of 13 guns a year does not affect the 
     average citizen--or the average gun purchaser. As the New 
     York Times pointed out in a recent editorial supporting a 
     federal limit, those who argue that One Gun a Month would 
     limit a citizen's right to bear arms should be forced to 
     ``explain to crime-fearing Americans why a 12-gun-per-year 
     limit would impose any offensive burden on law-abiding users 
     who may want a weapons for target shooting or for personal 
     protection.''
       Instead, the federal standard proposed in S. 466 simply 
     limits the ability of those who resell guns on our streets. 
     Again, look at just the Pennsylvania numbers. Of the 25,510 
     purchasers of guns in 1996, One Gun a Month would affect only 
     103 Pennsylvania purchasers (those who bought more than 12 
     guns in a 12-month period.) That's .4 percent of all 
     purchasers of guns in Philadelphia, and only a total of 5,000 
     guns out of the 38,000 sold in 1996 in the Philadelphia 
     region.
       And while One Gun a Month does little to limit purchases by 
     law-abiding citizens in Pennsylvania, it has the potential to 
     crack down on the sales to those who sell to criminals and 
     children. In other words, it has the ability to go after the 
     gun sales that none of us want: not the City of Philadelphia, 
     not any member of Congress, and not even the gun 
     manufacturers or the NRA.
       The grim reality of these types of sales is inescapable. 
     FACT: At least 20 percent of all multiple gun purchasers can 
     be linked to guns used in the commission of crime, 
     particularly violent crime, in Philadelphia. FACT: A total of 
     608 handguns that were purchased in multiple purchase 
     transactions have been directly linked to a homicide or other 
     violent crime in Philadelphia. And as the tracing of these 
     guns continues, these numbers undoubtedly will continue to 
     rise. FACT: Under One Gun a Month, the sale of guns to 
     ``suspect purchasers'' (those whose purchases suggest 
     involvement in street resale of guns) could be reduced by as 
     much as 54 percent.
       States have taken the lead in the effort to limit purchases 
     to one gun a month. And as Sen. Lautenberg has made clear, 
     the good news is that One Gun a Month is working in Virginia, 
     South Carolina and Maryland, where it was most recently 
     enacted. In Virginia, the odds of a handgun seized in a crime 
     anywhere along the East Coast has dropped 66 percent since 
     One Gun a Month was enacted in 1993. In Maryland, handgun 
     sales dropped more than 25 percent last year, and as the 
     Washington Post noted sarcastically, that in turn ``is 
     threatening Maryland's position as a leading supplier of 
     handguns seized by police at crime scenes up and down the 
     East Coast.''
       I urge members of Congress to follow the lead of Sen. 
     Lautenberg and support S. 466, the ``Anti-Gun Trafficking 
     Act.'' I have also urged the gun industry and the NRA to 
     support this important legislation, together with my fellow 
     mayors from cities all over the nation. Again, this is not 
     about whether people have the right to bear arms or purchase 
     weapons. This legislation does not affect them. This is about 
     keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, and out of the 
     hands of children. Gun violence is out of control in 
     Philadelphia, and this legislation can help to stop it. I 
     urge your support.
       Several years ago, a Florida-based manufacturer of assault 
     pistols which at that time were with a 32-round magazine, 
     said: ``I know some of the guns going out of here will end up 
     killing people, but I'm not responsible for that.'' He was 
     wrong then, and that attitude is wrong now. It is my 
     responsibility, and it is everyone's responsibility, 
     including mayors, state legislators, members of Congress, and 
     indeed, especially the gun industry itself.
       Back in April, I came to Washington to speak directly to 
     gun manufacturers, thanks to the invitation of the American 
     Shooting Sports Council. It was, I might add, not the 
     greatest reception I've ever gotten. But they were at least 
     willing to listen, and I told them that we very much wanted 
     to be their allies in fighting the growing plague of gun 
     violence. That remains true, but understand, one way or 
     another we will try anything and everything--whether it is 
     partnering with the gun industry or the NRA, or suing gun 
     manufacturers--to end the terrible consequences of gun 
     violence on the streets of Philadelphia.

                          ____________________