[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 51 (Wednesday, May 3, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E691-E692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  A NEW GUN ARGUMENT--MAYORS TURN THE POLITICAL ISSUE TO SAVING LIVES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Wednesday, May 3, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to praise New York City Mayor 
Michael R. Bloomberg for taking the initiative of bringing the issue of 
gun violence to the forefront. This is truly an important topic for 
discussion. Mayor Bloomberg is aware of the many problems caused by gun 
violence and he knows first hand the commitment needed to adequately 
address it.
  Mayor Bloomberg knows just how serious this issue has become in major 
cities across America. As a result, just this past week, he called for 
a conference in New York City of a few big city mayors in what was 
labeled ``national leadership in the war on gun violence''. Gun 
violence in many of our nation's cities is on the rise, and will 
continue to be if no serious action is taken. Mayor Bloomberg feels 
that since neither the White House nor Congress has taken any real 
steps toward addressing the issue, it must fall to state and local 
governments to handle.
  I want to stress the fact that this responsibility should not fall 
solely on state and local governments, but equally on us in the 
Congress. Congress needs to see what can be done to assist those in our 
home districts dealing with gun violence. Have we forgotten about them? 
We should be able to provide our cities with any type of assistance 
that they need, especially on an issue so vital.
  Congress needs to reinstate the assault weapons ban act of 1994 which 
sadly expired in September of 2004. Allowing this law to expire does 
not show our resolve on gun trafficking and I believe that it renders 
us irrelevant. Mayor Bloomberg is a Republican and has teamed up with 
Democratic mayors in particular Mayor Menino of Boston and has in 
essence left the partisanship at the door for the sake of the people 
they were elected to serve.
  Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston have made the case 
that this is in no way an attack on the culture of hunting, a sport 
practiced by many in this country. However, they realize that ``it's a 
difference in how guns are used''. In rural areas, guns are used for 
collection and hunting, but in inner cities, guns are ``used almost 
entirely to threatened or kill other human beings''.
  I enter into the Record the opinion editorial by E.J. Dionne, Jr. 
published by the Washington Post for the new insight it presented and 
acknowledgment of various big city mayors for the efforts to control 
guns. The mayors are leading the way toward stronger gun control and we 
must find ways to support this growing movement.

               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 28, 2006]

  A New Gun Argument--Mayors Turn the Political Issue to Saving Lives

                         (By E.J. Dionne, Jr.)

       New York.--Have you noticed that Washington politicians 
     have given up on thinking about new solutions to gun 
     violence? New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has noticed, and 
     he's angry. Good for him.
       Bloomberg is a Republican, if hardly a partisan sort, and 
     it may take a Republican to restart a debate that many 
     Democrats have fled after a careful examination of the 
     electoral map--and years of exhaustion from demagoguery on 
     the issue.
       Teaming up with Boston's Democratic mayor, Thomas Menino, 
     Bloomberg brought 13 other big-city mayors together here on 
     Tuesday to call for ``national leadership in the war on gun 
     violence.''
       ``If the leadership won't come from Congress or come from 
     the White House, then it has to come from us,'' said 
     Bloomberg.
       The mayors, Menino said, do not want to meddle with the 
     rights of hunters. They are concerned about the trafficking 
     of illegal guns and the powerlessness of individual cities to 
     enforce their own weapons laws because of loopholes in 
     federal rules and because criminals can easily obtain weapons 
     in jurisdictions with looser regulations.
       Our dysfunctional political system has become especially 
     dysfunctional on gun violence. The National Rifle Association 
     regularly says that we don't need new laws and should simply 
     enforce the regulations on the books. But if many of the 
     existing laws are unenforceable, that statement is 
     meaningless.
       Opponents of even modest gun regulation win the upper hand 
     rhetorically by invoking two words: freedom and elitism. None 
     of us is really free, the argument goes, unless all of us 
     have essentially unfettered access to weapons, and any new 
     gun laws are seen as leading down a slippery slope to a total 
     ban on gun ownership. Supporters of gun regulations are 
     always cast as metropolitan highbrows lacking in respect for 
     the way of life of law-abiding country folks.
       At a structural level, Congress has a deep bias in favor of 
     the rural point of view because the Senate is stacked in 
     favor of rural states. Idaho, Wyoming and Montana have two 
     senators each, and so do California, New York and Illinois.
       According to the latest Census Bureau estimates, the six 
     senators from those three rural states represent 2,874,060 
     people. The six from the three states that include big urban 
     and suburban populations represent 68,150,148 people. By 
     these figures, you might calculate the rough odds against gun 
     regulations at 24 to 1.
       Changing the political argument is easier than changing the 
     Senate. Mayors--joined soon, Menino hopes, by suburban county 
     executives--are the right people to start the work.
       Yes, there is a cultural difference between big cities and 
     rural areas, but it's a difference in how guns are used. 
     Rural people treasure their guns mostly for hunting and 
     recreation, and as collectors. In inner cities, guns--
     especially handguns--are used almost entirely to threaten or 
     kill other human beings.
       ``There are neighborhoods where if you say `duck,' people 
     get out of the way because they're worried they'll be shot,'' 
     Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said in an interview. ``But there 
     are other parts of the country where if you say `duck,' 
     people will grab their rifles to go duck hunting.''
       We desperately need a new politics of gun regulation in 
     which law-abiding gun owners see the fight for tougher laws 
     not as a form of disrespect for their culture but as an 
     acknowledgment that if our gun rules are an unenforceable 
     hodgepodge, illegal guns will inevitably get into the hands 
     of kids and criminals in the cities and suburbs.
       ``I'm fighting for freedom, too,'' said Barrett. ``I'm 
     fighting for the freedom of a grandma to sit on her front 
     porch and not get hit when there's a drive-by shooting. I'm 
     fighting for the freedom of kids to play in the park without 
     being caught in a crossfire.''
       The mayors have to act for another reason: Democrats have 
     lost their nerve on the gun issue. Barrett traces this to the 
     passage of the assault weapons ban in 1994. (Congress let it 
     expire in September 2004.) Many Democrats who supported the 
     ban were defeated in that fall's election.
       ``So Democrats who might be inclined to do something are 
     now inclined to stay away from the issue,'' said Barrett, a 
     Democratic member of Congress at the time. ``And most 
     Republicans aren't inclined to do anything at all.''
       Railing against this state of affairs is useless. Better 
     that a savvy group of mayors takes the lead in the difficult 
     struggle to change the underlying politics by reminding 
     Americans that this issue is about saving the lives of 
     innocent kids--and of grandmas in their rocking chairs.

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