[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 26 (Thursday, March 9, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H762]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           HUD'S GUN BUYBACK PROGRAM SHOULD NOT BE ELIMINATED

  (Mrs. McCARTHY of New York asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, the House Committee on 
Appropriations wants to eliminate the gun buyback program at the 
Nation's public housing authorities. This just makes no sense.
  Last week, a first grader killed another first grader with a handgun. 
Yesterday, four people in Memphis were killed in what started as a 
domestic dispute but ended when a gunman shot to death his wife, two 
firefighters, and a sheriff's deputy.
  The daily gun violence in this country is a national problem. It 
calls for a national solution.
  The American people know that 13 children are killed every day by gun 
violence. Meanwhile, the Congress has done nothing. Now the leadership 
has directed the House appropriations to eliminate the Department of 
Housing Urban Development's gun buyback program. This program has been 
highly successful in partnering police with housing officers to remove 
guns from public housing and in curbing gun violence.
  In fact, Memphis, the site of Wednesday's gun killings, would lose 
its buyback program and so would 80 public housing authorities across 
the Nation.
  The supplemental appropriations bill now has language in it that 
rescinds more than $700,000 from the gun buyback program.
  Mr. Speaker, this is crazy. When we have programs that work, we 
should not take them back. We have a moral obligation to reduce gun 
violence in this country.

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