[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 17469]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                     CALIFORNIA'S GUN CONTROL LAWS

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, earlier this week, California Governor Gray 
Davis signed into law two of the strictest gun control measures in the 
country. One of these laws is the nation's most comprehensive ban on 
assault weapons, and the other prohibits the purchase of more than one 
handgun a month.
  California residents support these common sense safety measures 
designed to take lethal, semiautomatic weapons off the streets, and 
reduce illegal gun trafficking. Californians feel strongly about ending 
the easy accessibility of guns because of their history with gun 
violence over this last decade. In 1989, Americans were shocked when a 
madman walked into a schoolyard in Stockton, CA, with a rapid-firing 
AK-47 and shot off 50 rounds a minute for 2 minutes, killing 5 children 
and wounding 30. Californians were again struck by tragedy in a 1993 
massacre at a San Francisco law firm in which 8 people died and 6 were 
wounded, and again in 1997, when a high profile armed bank robbery 
spilled out on to the streets of North Hollywood.
  As always, NRA lobbyists were working to undermine the effort of the 
California state legislature. But because gun violence has held such a 
prominent and tragic place in the minds and hearts of Californians, the 
legislature was able to defy the NRA and pass these responsible gun 
control measures. So many families in California have been torn apart 
by gun violence, and so many people have been affected by the weak gun 
control laws in this nation, that the NRA failed in the California 
state legislature.
  I hope that other states will follow the lead of the California state 
legislature and pass responsible gun control measures. I pray that they 
learn from the tragedies in California, rather than wait for a decade 
of tragedies to occur in their own states, before passing responsible 
safety measures. I also make an appeal to my Congressional colleagues 
to pass sensible gun control legislation now. Although in this case, 
the debate on gun violence has moved to the state legislature, Congress 
has not been absolved of its responsibility. We must end the plague of 
gun violence that claims so many innocent lives.

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