[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 136 (Wednesday, October 16, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10573-S10574]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CORZINE:
  S. 3116. A bill to permanently eliminate a procedure under which the 
Bureau of alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms

[[Page S10574]]

can waive prohibitions on the possession of firearms and explosives by 
convicted felons, drug offenders, and other disqualified individuals; 
to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce important gun 
control legislation that would shut down permanently the guns for 
felons program.
  For too many years the Federal Government spent millions of dollars a 
year to restore the gun privileges of convicted felons. Fortunately, 
for the last ten years, Congress has seen fit to defund the program, 
through annual funding restrictions.
  Congress was right to defund a program that, according to the 
Violence Policy Center, restored gun privileges for thousands of 
convicted felons, at a cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayer. As 
the Violence Policy Center demonstrated, a number of these felons went 
on to commit violent crimes.
  I believe strongly that we must do all we can to keep guns out of 
criminals' hands. I am pleased that every year Congress has renewed the 
funding ban, which prohibits ATF from processing firearms applications 
from convicted felons. Indeed, by introducing this legislation today, I 
do not in any way intend to imply that the annual funding bans are not 
sufficient to shut down the guns for felons program.
  Today the Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could 
jeopardize our efforts to ensure that convicted felons do not have 
access to guns by possibly giving Federal judges the power to rearm 
those felons regardless of the Congressional funding ban. I have been 
active in pushing for the funding ban, and it certainly was not my 
intention, nor do I believe it was anyone else's intention, to give 
judges power to unilaterally give felons their firearm privileges back. 
It is hard enough for ATF, after conducting an intensive investigation, 
to make judgments about an individual felon; for a court to do it on 
its own is completely inappropriate. To put it simply, courts will lack 
the resources to make an informed judgment in this regard. In any case, 
Congress' intent, and the appropriate rule, is that felons should be 
prohibited from owning guns period. Enacting my legislation will 
eliminate the guns for felons program permanently and prevent the need 
for Congress to revisit this issue every year.
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