[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 58 (Thursday, May 11, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H2959-H2964]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
MILLION MOM MARCH
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 1999, the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms.
Norton) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority
leader.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, it should not take a million moms to do
anything, but that is what we are going to get this coming Sunday,
Mother's Day. Actually, it should not have taken the moms whose
children died at the Columbine High School youth massacre.
{time} 1645
It should not take the moms who are still feeling the reverberations
of the Jonesboro, Arkansas, shooting. And it should not have taken what
the moms at the Granada Hills Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles
went through just last August.
But what has happened with the killing of youth over the past year,
and it has been more than a year since Columbine, has caused the
mothers of America to take the matter into their own hands, and well
they might because this Congress has not taken it into its hands, to do
something about it.
These mothers are coming. I do not know if there will be a million,
but I know there will be a lot. And this is what they say to us, ``We
are putting our elected officials on notice that we, the mothers, will
not tolerate them putting the gun lobby before the safety of our
children any longer. We expect results, and we will hold our elected
officials accountable if they do not deliver.''
Mr. Speaker, these are some serious women and their families. These
are some moms who wanted to test us to see whether if they come they
can get the attention that the killings of children throughout the
United States have failed to attract.
The moms do not doubt that every Member of this body and of the other
body are seriously concerned about the deaths of these and the 80,000
children who have died from gunfire, accidental, suicidal, and
homicidal since 1979. They know we care. They do not know that we have
the political will to do what is necessary to stop these killings.
I am grateful that two Members of this body, the gentlewoman from
Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs.
McCarthy), have introduced a Congressional resolution praising the
Million Mom March. They know that this body is full of Members who
support gun safety legislation and certainly the gun legislation that
is pending before the House at the moment in conference committee.
Because that is, by any standards, very modest legislation.
The million moms, of course, are way out in front of us on
legislation. Their crusade, and it has taken on the appearance of a
mother's crusade, began with a single mother, not with any special
interest organization, not with any group of lobbyists sitting around
trying to get our attention, but with a single mother who, following
the North Valley Jewish Community Center shooting last August, simply
could not take it anymore.
One mom started. And if ever there is a meaning to grassroots
movement, that is what has happened ever since. It has been 9 months.
There must be some symbolic importance of that time since she started
this crusade. And it has grown like wildfire in every State of the
Union.
It started with suburban, middle class moms. And that is very
interesting as far as this Member, who represents a large city, is
concerned. Because until the Columbine youth massacre, the real focus
had been on the one-on-one shootings, and that is what they mostly were
and mostly are, that occur in large cities because kids so easily get
ahold of guns.
What has made this a national priority is that mothers and families
now see that these guns know no borders and that suburban children are
at least as fascinated with guns as anywhere.
So we are going to see hundreds of buses come into this town from
Texas and California, to Maine and Michigan. In April they said
Pennsylvania was leading in buses. By now I do not know if some other
State has overtaken Maine.
Rosie O'Donnell, the television celebrity, who everybody knows is a
big opponent of the proliferation of guns, is going to be the MC.
But the fact is, Mr. Speaker, that we will not find many Members of
this body speaking because the moms want to speak for themselves. There
will be an occasional public official speaking. But, apparently, to
qualify to speak, if they happen to be a public official, they have to
have been a public official who has suffered gun violence in her own
family.
I love it that the march will be open not, as is the usual case, by
our mayor, after all, he is not a mom, but by the woman we call Nana
Williams, the mother of the mayor. And then the moms will step forward
to tell their stories and to let us know what they want.
Look, everybody else has tried. We begin in quite civil debates on
the subject. The media delight in airing the subject. None of that talk
has gotten us anywhere on the most modest legislation, the bill pending
before us, where we literally are almost at the point of absolute
agreement literally with about an inch to go and cannot get that inch
accomplished.
That inch, of course, has largely to do with closing the gun show
loophole, with most of us agreeing that instant checks would do it but
not wanting to let the most dangerous potential owners get through
because they will require at least 24 hours.
We hear about the dozen children every day who die from gunshot
wounds. These do not always occur in the way, of course, that the
terrible tragedy occurred at Columbine. These happen with accidents.
They happen with kids playing with guns. These happen with suicides.
What they all have in common is the easy availability of guns to kid.
Well, the moms, in all of their literature, insist upon speaking for
themselves. Here again is what they say. ``Now we moms are mad, and we
mean business. We want Congress to create a meaningful gun policy in
this country that treats guns like cars.''
I have to tell my colleagues that I would save some time if I did not
have to get my car checked or the registration renewed. But most of us
understand that a car is seen as a dangerous weapon. If that is true
about a car that is used normally in a quite benign fashion, I guess
the moms have a point when they say they do not understand why guns
cannot be treated like cars.
As I contemplated Columbine, which has weighed on my mind for the
full year since it took place, I was jolted when a big-city version of
the suburban tragedy in Colorado came right here to the Nation's
capital at the National Zoo that the House and the Senate established
long ago essentially for children.
Seven children were wounded when gunfire broke out on Easter Monday.
Thank God none of them were killed. But, Mr. Speaker, one of them lies
still gravely wounded in Children's Hospital here.
I, of course, have visited that family. It is a very brave family.
They have stayed away from the press. They are very dignified. The
family has devoted its energy to prayer and to this 11-year-old child
who is fighting for his life.
They call him Pappy because when he was born he looked like a
papoose. They delight in talking about him. Because this 11-year-old is
no man-child. He is still a child and is still acting like a child,
jumping up in his mama's bed, playing with his video games, loving his
mom and his dad, and is part of
[[Page H2960]]
a big, extended family. So they feel a real hole in their hearts with
this youngster lying in the bed.
It is interesting. His mother, in talking to me, brought up the
Million Mom March. She said, you know Congresswoman, I go to all these
marches. So I intended to go to the Million Mom March, but I am
certainly going to go this time.
And so, she will be with me. Mrs. Bates, the mother of Harris Pappy
Bates, will be marching with me and with mothers from Maryland,
Virginia, and the District on Sunday.
On Sunday, we are going to start out from Freedom Plaza at 11 o'clock
and we are going to march together as a region to drive home the point
that we know that these borders are porous. The moms in Virginia and
Maryland say they know that the guns come from their States and from
other States.
We in the District have done our job in banning guns altogether. We
are not asking for other jurisdictions to do exactly as we are doing,
but we do think that our Government has an obligation to protect us all
in the national union of which we are a part by enacting legislation to
protect our kids.
So there is going to be a Metro Moms March from Freedom Plaza to the
march simply to show solidarity in the region for our kids, to put
aside all the rhetoric, to put aside all of the jingoism about where we
are from and to stand together with our kids on Sunday and to make our
own regional statement.
And just as we will be making our own regional statement, we know
that mothers from every State in the Union will be carrying the flag of
their State to talk about their experience and to speak directly to us,
mom to Congress, about our job, our part of the job in eliminating
these guns.
I see, Mr. Speaker, that one of our distinguished Members, the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald), has come to the
floor. I yield to the gentlewoman.
{time} 1700
Ms. MILLENDER-McDONALD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for her leadership and her passion on
this issue.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support today's special order and to
thank again the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia for bringing
attention to this serious problem in our Nation. It is a serious issue
that is really plaguing the families and the children of our mothers.
As a mother and a grandmother, I am moved by the efforts and commitment
of mothers across this Nation to draw attention to the thousands of
children who have been killed by gunfire. As a legislator, however, I
am disturbed that we here in Congress have not heard the pleas for
common sense gun legislation. Throughout this session, we have
struggled to keep the focus of Congress on gun safety, one of the most
vital issues facing our country today. This Congress has sat idle for
some 9 months, refusing to pass common sense legislation or to hold a
simple meeting while an alarming number of America's children are
gunned down every day.
Mr. Speaker, the question we must ask ourselves is why so many of our
American children must die, for God sake, before this Congress takes
action to end the epidemic of violence that plagues our communities and
especially our families, but, most importantly, our children. In the
United States today, a child dies from gunfire every 100 minutes, 12
times the rate of the next 25 industrialized nations combined. That
means, Mr. Speaker, that 12 children die from gunfire each day, a
classroom full every 2 days. Not one of our congressional districts is
immune from gunfire which has taken the lives of children. In my
district, Joe and Gerald Hawkins are but two of the victims in this
cycle. The names of America's children continue to toll. George
Camacho, Armondo Garcia, Yuridia Balbuena, Olivia Munguia, Jessica
Yvette Zavala have all been killed by gunfire in California. What do we
tell mothers when we in Congress cannot even meet to discuss common
sense gun legislation that would have saved the lives of these children
and save the lives of many more?
Mr. Speaker, I represent the 37th Congressional District of
California, which includes the areas of Watts, Compton and Wilmington,
some of the most impoverished areas in the Nation. These areas, like
many in the inner city, have been riddled with gun violence. We cannot
allow another child from our communities to die while this Congress
refuses to move forward with common sense gun legislation.
It is quite simple. While Congress sits on the sideline, more of our
Nation's children are dying each day from gun violence. Our Nation's
mothers have spoken and will speak again on Sunday. The message is
clear. Gun safety is about saving lives. Regrettably, the mothers of
this Nation are marching on Washington and in cities across this
country not to celebrate sensible gun legislation but to protest an
ineptitude which has infiltrated the halls of Congress. A delegation of
mothers from my district will participate in one of the two marches in
the Los Angeles community. I hope and pray that our message will
finally move Congress to address this issue before another day passes
and more of our children are lost to gunfire.
It is unfortunate that we have let special interests and political
differences interfere with a common sense approach to protecting the
lives of America's greatest asset, our children. I have introduced a
bill both in the 105th Congress and the 106th Congress that would
prohibit any person from transferring or selling a firearm in the
United States unless it is sold with a child safety lock. Common sense
gun safety measures that prevent felons, fugitives and stalkers from
obtaining firearms and children from having access to guns are the
types of items that we want enacted into law in this Congress.
My dear colleagues, wherever you are, we have been entrusted by the
people of this Nation to be leaders and visionaries. We have a moral
obligation to the people of our Nation to enact legislation before more
of our children are sacrificed. Again, I thank the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia, and I urge my colleagues to stand up for children
and support the Million Mom March this Sunday. Happy Mother's Day to
all mothers and to those mothers who will be marching on behalf of our
children.
Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentlewoman from California for her very good
intervention and for her work in this Congress on behalf of children
and her work in promoting the use of Mother's Day in a particularly
meaningful way this year.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
Mr. RUSH. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia for all of her work on behalf of meaningful gun
control legislation, and I want to thank her for allowing me the
opportunity to come before this body to discuss gun control legislation
and to discuss the Million Moms March. Today, Mr. Speaker, I want to
thank the Million Moms March organizers for inviting me to share my
thoughts on the need for gun control in this country at the Million
Moms March on Mother's Day 2000 this upcoming Sunday. This is an issue
which has been dear to me for quite some time.
It is with great sorrow that I come to the floor to remember the more
than 80,000 children who have fallen victim to gun violence since 1979,
great sorrow that is followed with great conviction, great conviction
that I rise to advocate for the 13 children who statistics say die
today, died yesterday, and therein will die tomorrow from gun violence.
Also on yesterday, the National Education Association held a press
conference to draw attention in part to the fact that gun violence robs
children of the opportunity to learn and to grow. And on the eve of the
Million Mom March, we must remember that at its core the gun control
issue is about opportunity. It is about the opportunity for our
children to go to school and to learn without fearing for their lives.
The gun control issue is about opportunity, the opportunity for our
children to enjoy the wonderful innocence of youth. This is an
opportunity that they all deserve.
As adults, we make life choices which may be risky or may be
dangerous. For example, millions of police officers and other public
safety officers go to work each and every day and willingly put their
lives on the line to protect and
[[Page H2961]]
serve the public. But it is one thing for an adult to die in the course
of performing a chosen duty. It is one thing for the parents, the
family of that adult to have an element of uncertainty in their lives
as their father, spouse, mother go off to perform a chosen duty. But it
is another thing for a parent, for any parent, to fear for the life of
a young child who goes off to school, a birthday party or even to the
local grocery store.
Too often, it is a common occurrence in our Nation for these parents,
these siblings, these loved ones, to engage in moments of uncertainty
as our young people go off to perform in routine matters, go off to do
those normal things that children do, including going to school, going
to a birthday party or just going to the local grocery store. These are
the routine events of a young life which should never ever be
threatening.
So today, on the eve of the Million Moms March, I want every mother
in my district in Chicago, every mother in Chicago, every mother across
this Nation, to know that I for one stand firmly with them arm in arm,
hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder. I am ready to do all that I can to
bring this senseless violence to an end. The time has come. This time
is now. The time has come for the Congress to listen finally to the
impassioned voices of mothers and fathers from all across this Nation.
It is high time that we do all that we can to give our children the
most important opportunity of all, and that is the opportunity to lead
a meaningful life, the opportunity to just live.
Again, I want to thank the organizers of the Million Moms March, and
I want to thank the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia for
organizing this special order.
Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman from Illinois for coming to the
floor this evening. The gentleman from Illinois will be speaking at the
march because of his own tragic loss, and I honor the moms for
understanding that what public officials should speak are those public
officials who indeed have a tragedy that bespeaks why the moms are
here. I honor the gentleman for his participation and our prayers
continue to be with him in his loss.
It is my great pleasure to yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and
for her leadership in so many very, very important issues. Again, the
issue that we address today is probably one of the most important. As I
reflected on my statement this evening about the upcoming Million Moms
March to be held on such an important day, Mother's Day, and focus on
such a pressing issue, common sense gun safety legislation, I knew that
this momentous occasion deserved profound but heartfelt words.
As I searched my soul for those words, I realized that they had
already been written over two centuries ago and could be found within
one of the documents that is sitting right on my desk, the Constitution
of the United States of America, for the Constitution's preamble
states, ``We the people of the United States in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide
for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the United States of America.''
Let me repeat the key phrase that is critical to this issue: ``We the
people of the United States in order to ensure domestic tranquility . .
. do ordain and establish this Constitution.''
Many of the opponents of common sense gun safety legislation would
interpret this phrase along with the second amendment to mean that our
Constitution provides for unregulated access and use of guns by
individual citizens in order to protect themselves, their families and
their communities. And may I add for recreational use.
On Sunday, Mother's Day, our Nation's mothers will respectfully
disagree. In 1999 in one single year, 4,025 children and teens were
killed by gunfire, one every 2 hours, nearly 12 every day. 1,262
children committed suicide using a firearm, more than three every day.
306 died from an accidental shooting. I ask the opponents of gun safety
legislation, is this domestic tranquility? Nearly three times as many
children under 10 died last year from gunfire as the number of law
enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Is this domestic
tranquility? And American children under 15 are 12 times more likely to
die from gunfire than children in 25 other industrialized countries
combined.
{time} 1715
I ask the question is this domestic tranquility? Sadly, many of our
neighborhoods and schoolgrounds have become war zones where our
children will soon be forced to wear protective gear to protect them
from the piercing sting of a bullet, and, ultimately, death.
Again, I ask the opponents of gun safety, is this domestic
tranquility? Is this what our Constitution allows? I submit that the
framers of the Constitution created a document that serves as the
foundation of our democratic society, yes, lending certain freedoms.
However, it is also meant to guarantee certain protections, including
domestic tranquility.
As lawmakers, it is our duty to pass legislation that breathes life
into this constitutional ideal. This means that our Nation's mothers
should be guaranteed the right to raise their children in a tranquil
environment free from the fear that their child could be killed by
gunfire in their own home, in a friend's home, or on the school
playground or simply walking to a neighborhood store.
This means common sense gun safety legislation that would make guns
childproof and theftproof and would require increased background checks
in order to close loopholes through which criminals gain access to
guns.
And so, this evening, the profound heartfelt words that I leave with
you, Mr. Speaker, are as such, on Sunday, our Nation's mothers will
send us a signal that we have an obligation to uphold the ideals of the
Constitution of the United States of America by ensuring that their
children are afforded a world of domestic tranquility.
Mr. Speaker, it is our duty to breathe life into these words and
protect the lives of our children, for our children are the living
messages we send to a future we will never see. Let us rid their lives
of gun war zones and replace them with tranquil homes, schools and
communities by passing common-sense gun safety legislation.
Our time is running out, one child dead in the past 2 hours, 12 dead
today.
Ms. NORTON. I thank the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr.
Cummings), my good friend, for those very moving remarks.
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield to another distinguished friend,
the gentleman from Manhattan, New York (Mr. Nadler).
Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from the District of
Columbia (Ms. Norton).
Mr. Speaker, I rise to voice my support for the Million Mom March. I
am looking forward to participating in the march this weekend which
welcomes concerned mothers, fathers and their children to join in the
call for reasonable gun safety measures.
This House should certainly pass reasonable gun safety measures, and
we should call upon the leadership to convene the conference committee
that has sat for over a year without meeting because they do not want
to deal with these issues.
One of the main goals of the march is to urge Congress not to pass
merely some of the very mild gun safety legislation that has been
considered here, which is apparently too much for the Republican
leadership, but to pass, in addition handgun licensing and registration
legislation. In the spirit of this effort, I strongly urge my
colleagues to cosponsor the handgun licensing and registration bills,
H.R. 2916 and H.R. 2917, that I introduced in September of last year.
Senator Feinstein has just introduced very similar legislation in the
Senate. Handgun Control, Inc. has endorsed these bills which would
require States to establish handgun licensing and registration systems.
H.R. 2916 would require individuals to pass a Brady background check,
take a gun safety course and obtain a photo license from their States
in order to receive a license to purchase a handgun.
H.R. 2917 would require States to implement handgun registration
programs.
These common sense measures are supported by about 70 percent of
Americans according to the recent CNN-USA
[[Page H2962]]
Today-Gallup polls, if you want to own and operate an automobile,
which, used improperly, can be a deadly weapon. Every State in the
union requires that the automobile be registered and that you obtain a
license to drive.
With respect to guns, which are by definition deadly weapons, we
should take similar precautions, and as the polls I mentioned shows, 70
percent of Americans agree with this common-sense assertion.
These bills have been awaiting action by the House Committee on the
Judiciary since last September. In response to the huge outpouring of
support for these ideas, I, again, urge the House Republican leadership
to schedule hearings and markups on these two critically important
bills.
The House Republican leadership is fond of embracing motherhood and
apple pie; now they should listen to the moms and pass handgun
licensing and registration legislation as soon as possible.
Mr. Speaker, I also wish to thank the organizers of the march for
their efforts, and I look forward to joining many New Yorkers and tens
of thousands of people from all across the country in the Million Mom
March this Sunday on Mother's Day.
Let me add, I also want to thank the delegate, the gentlewoman from
the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) for arranging this special order.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the gentleman from New
York City for coming down to offer those important remarks and remind
us of our own obligations there is much we can do right now in this
House to respond to the mothers. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, the need for national gun legislation is brought home by
the virtual futility that many of us who have succeeded in getting
strong gun legislation in our own jurisdictions now see to that effort.
Many large cities in the United States, including the District of
Columbia, have gun bans. There are those with the audacity, some of
them on this floor occasionally to say words to the effect the District
of Columbia has a gun ban, so what good are gun control laws?
Well, that is a virtual concession to the proposition that we need
national gun safety legislation in order to have truly effective local
gun safety legislation, and that is all we are asking. That is all we
are asking. We are not asking for uniformity, but we do think there
should be a minimum standard that any decent civil society should have
with respect to the most dangerous weapons in that society, guns. That
is what these moms, I take it, are coming to say.
Mr. Speaker, I do not want to identify myself, though, with those who
have become so obsessed with the national obsession with guns that when
it comes to gun violence, they focus solely on guns. I do not believe
that guns are the central source for the violence in American society.
I think that their role is overwhelmingly clear, the role of guns in
that violence is overwhelmingly clear.
Mr. Speaker, I am a student of history, I have a Master's in history,
I read history, I love my country and I love its history, and I am
profoundly impressed with the degree to which violence is simply a part
of our national character. It was there before guns became
the pervasive weapons of choice in the streets of the cities and in the
homes of the suburbs.
Violence in the American character has expressed itself throughout
American history. We continue to carry forward that sense of violence
as simply a part of who we are. It may have to do with the fact that we
came, at least those of us who were not African Americans, or American
Indians, simply came as immigrants and fought our way, one way or the
other, some violently, some nonviolently, into the fabric of this
country, from the time that the first settlers fought the native
Americans for territory until the time that the Wild West was settled.
Whatever it is, we have to face who we are and who we are are folks who
have had violence as a part of who we are from the time the country
came into being. It is deep within us and guns is but one expression of
it.
Indeed, most of the expressions are at least overtly non-lethal, but
in my judgment, they probably are as primary in causing the violence as
guns are. I am talking about our movies and our videos and our cable,
and I am talking about Hollywood and the networks, and I am talking
about computer games. I see this as one huge stew. Guns are a part of
that stew, but it is a very dangerous mixture of things that we kind of
take for granted because everybody has them, as we see the increasing
violence in all of the portrayals from our literature to our video
portrayals. It is there, it is all around us. It cannot be avoided. We
have a love affair with violence and always have had one. We have had a
long, deep romance with violence.
Mr. Speaker, what I am saying is not that guns are the source of the
problems in our city, even the problems of guns; I am saying that guns
are a part of a phalanx of sources and this if we are going at the
sources, if we are going at Hollywood, if we are going where the guns
begin, with the parents and the communities, if we are going at the
networks, then who would leave out the guns? This is a big picture. All
of the actors in this picture need to sit around the same table and
come to some agreement about how to deal with all the causes of
violence.
All I ask my colleagues to remember, or indeed, to ask themselves, is
should guns be left out of this picture. Should we take them off the
table, while saying to Hollywood and the networks and computer games
and cable and literature, you come and see what should be done. As a
virtual first amendment absolutist, I certainly am not calling for
censorship, but I do believe if we all sat around the table and frankly
admitted that when a child of 5 gets acculturated to who he is in
American society through gun and violent-impacted portrayals everywhere
he looks, that one should not be surprised if he picks up a gun and
tries it out one day himself. Therefore, if we understand how almost as
if by osmosis the violence is picked up, then it seems to me putting
all of the causes on the table, we can stop the finger pointing and
begin where we must begin. All I am asking is that with a million
mothers coming in on mothers day, we at least begin with modest gun
control legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I want to sit with those who over and over again tell me
that there is not enough enforcement. Right, let us have more
enforcement; that we have to do something about the parents, I would
begin there; that the communities are racked with violence, we have to
draw the churches in, absolutely. Let us sit down and figure out a
strategy for that, but let us not take guns off the table. Let us not
have more than a year pass since Columbine and sit on our thumbs doing
nothing about it. Let us start with guns. Let us start with that
youngster with a bullet in his brain in Children's Hospital. Then, let
us come to work next week and put everything on the table and sit down
and figure out what to do.
{time} 1730
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Holt).
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) today to renew our call for gun
safety legislation and to highlight the Million Mom March, which will
take place this coming Sunday.
As my colleagues have indicated, the Million Mom March promises to be
an amazing event. This weekend I, too, will be coming back to
Washington from New Jersey. I will join families from across the Nation
who will take time out of their lives to come to the Nation's capital
to call for passage of commonsense gun safety legislation.
It takes a special kind of parent to spend Mother's Day on Interstate
95 on a bus heading for Washington. It will be moms, and in my case and
in the case of others, granddads and dads and grandmothers, but these
Americans feel so strongly about this issue that they are making this
commitment.
I believe this will be a Mother's Day that few will forget. Mothers
are trying to demonstrate to Congress the overwhelming desire of our
Nation's families for commonsense gun safety legislation.
Just a few weeks ago our Nation was shaken by events at a Michigan
elementary school classroom where a 6-year-old child, a child who had
barely
[[Page H2963]]
learned to read, knew how to kill another child with a handgun. It is
the latest in a long line of gun-related tragedies.
In Columbine we thought it was the last straw, but in West Paducah,
in Jonesboro, and in dozens of other communities across America, in
each case we thought, this is the straw. This is the last straw. It
will break the camel's back. We will get gun safety legislation moving.
Since the murder of little Kayla Rolland, citizens across New Jersey
have called even louder for passage of strict gun safety laws. But
despite the outcry, a few politicians in Congress have been standing in
the doorway and blocking the halls and refusing to act.
The National Rifle Association may control a few of the hearing rooms
around this Capitol, but we are here today to say that the NRA is going
to recoil from the effect of the mom squad. The hundreds of busloads
from across the Nation I think will show that they have more clout than
Charlton Heston and the gun lobby.
Every school I visit, every PTA meeting I attend, every classroom I
teach in, moms, kids, dads, nearly everyone I talk to in New Jersey
tells me it is high time that Congress take action to keep guns out of
the hands of kids and criminals. They are fed up reading the headlines,
and so am I.
As a new Member of Congress, I find it particularly disturbing that
Congress has refused to consider this legislation this year,
particularly in light of the fact that nearly one child is killed every
2 hours by gunfire.
I am sure my colleague here knows, but it is worth repeating, that
more people were killed by guns in New Jersey than in Australia and New
Zealand and Korea and Singapore, Japan, Canada, Germany, and Great
Britain combined last year. A child in America is more likely to die
from gun violence than from all communicable diseases.
Congress has passed laws that allow water pistols to be regulated by
the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but real pistols, the ones that
kill people, are not regulated. That needs to change.
All of us were shocked last year when a deranged gunman opened fire
at the Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, wounding several people,
children, later killing a randomly selected bystander. It was a hate
crime that left us numb.
But many people do not realize an additional shocking fact in that
story. The gun that was used was originally a police service firearm
that had been resold legally by the law enforcement agency and put back
on the street. It is an all too common problem that is only recently
being recognized. It makes no sense for police to work to get guns off
the street, and then to put them right back there where they can be
used to harm officers or civilians.
I have introduced legislation to encourage States to mandate the
destruction of surplus police guns when they are at the end of their
lives. Furthermore, something I have called for, some say it is
politically risky, but I think we should have registration of all
handguns in the United States, and licensing of all handgun owners. I
have legislation to do that.
As my colleague has said, you need a license to drive a car. You need
a license to catch a fish. You need a license to give a haircut or even
a pedicure. You ought to need a license to own a deadly firearm. It
should not take tragedies like Columbine and the recent shootings in
Seattle and Hawaii to get us to admit that.
It is time for Republicans and Democrats, Independents, to look the
NRA in the eye and say, enough. It is time to pass gun safety
legislation now.
I think the million moms, the moms squad, will help make that change.
I am old enough to remember the effect of the Mothers March for Peace.
I am sure my colleague remembers this. She was too young, perhaps. But
in 1961, it was the outrage of millions of mothers across America that
brought us the Atmospheric Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The power unleashed from these million moms is something to behold, I
guess is the way to put it. I think this will be a Mothers Day to
remember. Let us just hope that there are enough Members of Congress
who hear and heed the message that these mothers bring to Washington
this coming Mothers Day.
I thank my colleague for arranging this special order and drawing
attention to this important subject.
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I very much thank the gentleman from New
Jersey, Mr. Holt, for his salient remarks. I must say to the gentleman,
when he spoke about the moms and the nuclear ban treaty and said he was
old enough to remember it, he might have said, ``When I was a child,
the mothers insisted on such a ban.''
I would say to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), if I may say
so, I found what the gentleman had to say about shootings in the
gentleman's own State, New Jersey, comparing them to shootings in
nations, huge nations across the world, that there were more shootings
in this single State than in what looked like more than a half dozen
nations, I found that to be itself profoundly informative.
Mr. HOLT. If the gentlewoman will yield, the point I wanted to make,
it is not a particularly large number in New Jersey relative to the
other States. New Jersey also has a crime rate that is falling.
It is just that in the United States, there are 30,000 gun deaths a
year in the 50 States. Among the 9 million people in New Jersey, yes,
we have some, too. And it is, by any international standard,
astoundingly large.
Ms. NORTON. The gentleman does point out that crime is falling, and
still we are way beyond other countries. Of course, the statistics the
gentleman gave us from New Jersey very frankly could probably have been
given from every State in the Union. No State I think would be
excluded.
As the gentleman says, it is because we now have pervasive gun
violence. None of us is safe. Some thought they were safe if they did
not live in big cities. The million moms, most of whom are going to be
suburban moms, are leading the country to understand that these guns
are everywhere.
I very much thank the gentleman from New Jersey, unless he has some
more remarks to make.
Mr. HOLT. Just following on what the gentlewoman just said, no one in
America is immune. We have a society where guns are prevalent, are
available, are unlocked, and dangerous.
What I hear from so many people is not that Columbine High School is
a school where our children might go. In fact, Columbine High School is
a school where our children would like to go. It seems to have all of
the advantages: An excellent curriculum, excellent facilities. Yet,
that kind of tragedy could happen there. Yes, it could happen anywhere.
Ms. NORTON. Indeed so, because when children are acculturated to
violence, they get it off the television, off the same CDs, off the
same networks, they get it out of the same Hollywood, we really are one
Nation. Nothing, ironically, proves that more than the way in which
these guns have touched every part of our Nation.
I very much thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for his
very cogent intervention.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to put into the Record what the million
moms want. They are way beyond our modest gun legislation where we are
trying to close a gun loophole, and where we are trying to get gun
safety locks. They think that any rational human being should be doing
that and should do it quickly.
They are asking for licensing and registration. They say each would
work very simply and without a new bureaucracy. They say that the
licensing would mean that before one got a gun, one would complete a
basic safety course. Would anybody want a gun without in fact making
sure that she understood everything that was associated with that gun?
There would be a check to ensure that the person was not a criminal
who committed a violent crime, or a mentally ill person. There would be
a photo and a thumbprint, and of course, that like any license, it
would have to be renewed periodically.
Then they say they also want gun registration. The nerve of them. We
have to register for almost everything. I have to make sure my car is
registered because the time for that is due this year. They said what
would be involved there, if you fill out a form with the gun serial
number, the government would make sure, the local government would make
sure that the gun buyer is
[[Page H2964]]
in fact licensed. A copy of the registration would go to law
enforcement authorities.
Of course, there would be renewal of the registration periodically.
That way, of course, the tracing of guns would be a snap, and we would
make sure that the only people who got guns in the first place were
like the 90 percent of the people who pass the instant gun check, those
who of course are like you and me and are buying guns not to kill other
people.
I want to thank the President of the United States for going with me
to our academy, our police academy, where he announced that there would
be some funds available for the District to do another gun buyback on
June 14.
I have national legislation that would allow localities to receive
small amounts from the Federal government in order to do gun buy-backs.
They have been enormously successful in the District, where we set
something of a precedent, and we would hope that would be repeated and
that our national government would take up this notion.
I do want to stress that the million moms stress that they do not
advocate the banning of guns. They want particularly their Second
Amendment sisters to know that, because they cannot see any part of
what they want to do that any mothers would be truly in disagreement
with.
As a lawyer, I do want to answer those who are concerned about the
Second Amendment. My friends, if the Second Amendment kept the modest
legislation we are advocating here from going through, then how could
the gun bans, total gun bans, handgun bans that we have here in the
District and in every large city, have passed constitutional muster?
We can in fact regulate guns the way we regulate cars. The Second
Amendment does not say that there should be no regulation. We can even
regulate the time and manner of speech, and that is a more salient
constitutional right than the Second Amendment. Let us not keep
throwing the Second Amendment up and confusing the matter.
In the recent gun violence, in 1997, of the children killed, 191 were
under the age of 10 and 84 were under the age of 5. Most of these
children are not shot in shoot-em-ups, in gang wars. Most of these are
suicides. Imagine if a gun had not been available. The presence of the
gun in the home triples the risk of homicide in the home. If a gun is
not handy, then a suicide is less likely to occur, whether by a child
or an adult.
Mr. Speaker, the gun safety legislation that we have here is the
least that the mothers who are coming on Sunday are entitled to a year
after the Columbine youth massacre. They want much more. I think it
would be an insult and a show of disrespect if, at the very least, the
modest gun legislation pending before us were not forthcoming after
their visit here to Washington, where the national government sits.
I know that every Member of this body has the deepest respect for the
mothers. The mothers do not represent themselves as a lobby or
representative of every mother. They do say they are moms, and they ask
as moms for their Congress, their House, and their Senate to hear them
and to respond accordingly.
____________________