[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 121 (Thursday, September 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Page S11029]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            FIT GUN CONTROL

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I seek recognition because my comments 
follow on the same topic as the Senator from Utah, who I know wants 
very much to have a juvenile justice bill. But as I listened to his 
comments, I fear that perhaps we are not headed in the right direction 
with that legislation.
  Yesterday, I know that all of us were shocked, as all Americans were, 
to hear about a gunman walking into the back of a church in Ft. Worth, 
TX, killing six people, wounding seven, and then killing himself.
  I have a very simple message for my colleagues. If you can't feel 
safe from gun violence in the sanctuary of your church, where can you 
feel safe?
  On Tuesday, in a story in my home State, not even widely reported, a 
man walked into the West Anaheim Medical Center and killed three 
hospital workers because he was grief stricken that his mother died in 
that hospital. He went on the hunt for particular nurses. If you can't 
feel safe from gun violence in a hospital in America, where can you 
feel safe?
  What seems like yesterday is actually a couple of months now when in 
the Los Angeles region of California a crazed man walked into a Jewish 
center where there was a child care operation and shot his weapon. I 
will never forget the picture of the police holding the hands of that 
tiny little toddler as they tried to escape from the situation.
  These are memories that are imprinted in our minds. If we don't do 
anything about it in this Senate, we do not deserve to call ourselves 
the Senate, let alone the greatest deliberative body in the world.

  I feared, as I listened to the comments of the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, he seems to be saying that if we insist on modest 
gun control measures that are already in the Senate version, somehow we 
are playing politics.
  I want to say right here in the most straightforward way I can that 
it is not playing politics to say we should keep guns out of the hands 
of criminals and people who are mentally disturbed and out of the hands 
of children. That is not playing politics. That is doing what needs to 
be done in America in 1999 going into the next century.
  The modest gun control measures that we passed on this floor of the 
Senate--those modest measures that the Vice President cast the tie 
breaking vote for--are common sense and close the gun show loophole 
that allows criminals and mentally unbalanced people to walk into a gun 
show and immediately get a weapon. It is common sense to stop that.
  Senator Lautenberg's amendment would do so.
  Senator Feinstein's amendment on banning the importation of high-
capacity ammunition clips which are used in semiautomatic weapons--
common sense.
  Senator Kohl's amendment requiring that child safety devices be sold 
with every handgun--common sense.
  My own amendment asking the FTC and the Attorney General to study the 
extent to which the gun industry markets to children--common sense.
  The Ashcroft amendment making it illegal to sell or give a 
semiautomatic weapon to anyone under the age of 18--that is all we did 
in that bill.
  Yet we have the chairman of the Judiciary Committee out here talking 
as if, my goodness, those measures were political.
  Listen. I don't think the American people can stand this anymore.
  In closing my remarks, I am going to mention some of the shootings 
that took place in 1999.
  January 14, office building, Salt Lake City, Utah, one dead, one 
injured;
  March 18, law office, Johnson City, Tennessee, two dead;
  April 15, Mormon Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, three 
dead, including gunman (who was shot by police), four injured;
  April 20, Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, 15 dead, 
including the two teenage gunmen, 23 injured;
  May 20, Heritage High School, Conyers, Georgia, six injured;
  June 3, grocery story, Las Vegas, Nevada, four dead;
  June 11, psychiatrist's clinic, Southfield, Michigan, three dead, 
including the gunman, four injured;
  July 12, private home, Atlanta, Georgia, seven dead, including the 
gunman;
  July 29, two brokerage firms, Atlanta, Georgia, 10 dead, including 
the gunman, 13 injured;
  August 5, two office buildings, Pelham, Alabama, three dead;
  August 10, North Valley Jewish Community Center, Los Angeles, 
California, five injured (Postal worker killed later);
  September 14, West Anaheim Medical Center, Anaheim, California, three 
dead; and, just last night,
  September 15, Wedgwood Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas, seven dead, 
including gunman, seven injured.
  That is a partial list.
  We have to do something. We have the opportunity. What are we waiting 
for? I have to say that if we cannot vote out these modest gun control 
proposals which are common sense, and if we cannot pick up some votes 
from the other side of the aisle, including the President who is 
sitting in the Chair, if we can't do that, we should be ashamed to go 
home and say we did the people's business.
  Thank you very much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Thank you.

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