[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 89 (Tuesday, June 22, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H4713]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  DEBATE ON GUNS AFFECTS THE DISTRICT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, last week we had a heartbreaking debate on 
guns. Women Members of this body felt this debate with particular 
poignancy. If the truth be told, we regard ourselves as special 
guardians of issues that affect women and families, not because we are 
such, we are after all, self-anointed, but because we choose to be. 
However, I ask you to imagine a bill that came from outside, thrown in 
like a piece of dynamite to wipe out all your local gun laws, whether 
you are from the West and treasure your right to have a gun or whether 
you are from a crowded city and treasure your right to ban guns.
  Two amendments came forward that would have invaded my district with 
law from this body. We defeated one handily, that that simply wiped out 
handgun laws in the District of Columbia. The other, we almost 
defeated. That is the one I want to talk about this afternoon, because 
it is one that is of special importance to women and children, and that 
is a bill that would have allowed people in the District of Columbia to 
have guns in their home.
  Some Members came up to me and said, ``Well, that sounds reasonable 
to me to have a gun in your own home.'' So why should we not impose 
that on the District even though your city council has said otherwise 
and even though no Member here would impose anything on anybody else's 
district. Nevertheless, I can understand the surface appeal of a gun in 
your own home.
  Ask the women in your own district why they do not want a gun in 
their own home. No woman in America wants a gun in the home and there 
is a very good reason why. The greatest cause of death of women is 
inflicted upon them not by rapists in the streets but by guns and 
knives in the hands of their own partners in their own homes as it is 
now. Most of them go to the hospital, the victim of beatings, often 
severe. Imagine if guns were freely available in homes, particularly in 
large cities which have rampant domestic violence rates.
  Most of those who think about guns in the home are surely unaware of 
the most tragic statistics of all, and they are not the statistics from 
Columbine. They are the statistics that are awesomely larger. They are 
statistics that show accidental killings occur routinely from guns that 
are simply lying in the home, often out of the reach of children but 
found by children whose natural curiosity often makes them look for 
guns. Very few guns are used the way they are in the movies to counter 
somebody entering through the bedroom window and you shoot them dead. 
That is not what happens to guns in the home. Look at the statistics 
and you will know. But in big troubled cities there are other hazards 
in addition.
  The lady who takes care of my handicapped daughter when I told her 
about how some people wanted guns in the homes gave me I think the best 
wakeup call of all. She said, ``Oh, my God, what will happen to these 
bad teenagers?'' The first she could think of is in her high crime 
neighborhood in southeast Washington, the troubled teens would be all 
over the place. She has a hard enough time with them now, but if they 
think that everybody is packing a gun in her neighborhood, she did not 
know what she would do. I know that because I represent this city. I do 
not expect Members to know that who do not. That is why I do not expect 
them to impose guns on me when my city council has not done so. In this 
town, particularly in high crime neighborhoods, the criminals and, yes, 
the teens would be breaking in not looking for computers but looking 
for guns because they hear the people are packing guns now because the 
Congress says, ``That is the thing to do if you live in a high crime 
city, pack your gun in.''
  I do not need this body to send this message to a city that is one of 
the most violent cities in the United States and that our police chief 
is just getting under control. He was at the forefront of those who 
said he did not want our handgun laws wiped out and for God sakes do 
not send a message from the House that everybody ought to pack a gun.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, a grandmother named Helen Foster was shot in 
the back in southwest Washington as she gathered children after she 
heard gunshots, recognizing that they might be in danger. She died at 
D.C. General Hospital. What happens when there are guns in the home in 
a city like this? What happens when there are no handgun laws in a city 
like this? Grandmothers get shot in the back trying to defend their 
children.
  Let the District be the District. Go home and be what you want to be. 
Let my District be what it is.

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