[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 52 (Tuesday, May 2, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H2378-H2379]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               SHOOTING AT ZOO AND GUN SAFETY LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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, I want to welcome Members back and inform

[[Page H2379]]

Members, in case someone was off the planet last week, that Columbine 
came to the Nation's capital last week here where the Congress sits.
  At a traditional kids' fun day at the National Zoo, created by the 
Congress for kids, seven children were shot. One, an 11-year-old boy, 
lies at Children's Hospital with a bullet in his head. He was the 
quintessential innocent victim. Harris ``Pappy'' Bates is a big baby of 
a boy, the kind one would expect to find at the zoo on Easter Monday. 
Very much still a child, a rotund kid who was named Pappy because he 
looked like a papoose when he was born.
  His family had their first access to the press on Sunday. They 
thanked people for their prayers and they thanked the President for 
calling. They said they were praying for the 16-year-old suspect who 
was being held for the shooting. This family, I must say, gives real 
meaning to Christianity at a time when so many profess Christianity and 
speak only of vengeance. Pappy's mother said to me that she had always 
intended to be at the Million Moms March coming up on Mother's Day. She 
also said she supported gun safety legislation and always has.
  Pappy Bates is one of 700 children killed by gunfire in the Nation's 
capital, children under 19, during the 1990s. But there have been 
80,000 children killed by gunfire since 1978. The gun safety bill 
pending before us is only part of a very complex puzzle. The networks 
are in the puzzle, cable is in the puzzle, sports is in the puzzle, 
violent computer games is in the puzzle, and above all parents, who 
have the primary responsibility for children, are in the puzzle. We 
have to work to get all pieces on the table, and I want to work with 
Members on all pieces of the puzzle. But would we leave guns out of 
this puzzle?
  We are so very close, my colleagues.

                              {time}  1900

  Who would, after seeing what happened right here under the nose of 
the Capitol on Easter Monday, even think of leaving a loophole in the 
gun bill now stalled before us?
  For all Americans, the average Americans, indeed 90 percent of 
Americans, the instant check will work. But according to the data, the 
10 percent that we need 24 hours to look at are 20 times more likely to 
be criminals or people with a mental defect or people who otherwise 
should not have a gun.
  It has been more than a year since the Columbine youth massacre. Not 
one more week, Mr. Speaker, not one more week after this week should 
pass, and certainly not after an 11-year-old lies with a bullet in his 
brain at Children's Hospital right here in the Nation's capital. Not 
after Columbine, which itself should have been all we needed, if we 
needed even that. Not after what had happened at the zoo.
  I ask Members to come back with a new resolve to do what we almost 
have done. We are almost there. It has been difficult. Let us go the 
rest of the way. Do it for Pappy. But, above all, do it for the 
children in our districts.

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