[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11106]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         CONGRESS MUST DEAL WITH PROBLEM OF YOUTH VIOLENCE NOW

  (Mr. WEINER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, there has emerged a national consensus that 
we have to deal with the problem of youth violence. Hollywood must 
help, parents must be involved, and, yes, I say to my colleagues, 
Congress must act as well.
  There are some commonsense proposals that have reached a national 
consensus level for good reason. We now have laws in this country to 
require child-proof caps on aspirin bottles, but we do not have any 
laws that require trigger locks on handguns.
  The Speaker of this House deserves great credit for speaking up this 
week and saying he agrees we need commonsense gun regulations. The 
other body has spoken, and overwhelming numbers of us in this body 
agree we need these changes in the law.
  So why the stall? Why not act now, right now, today? We will have an 
opportunity before the Memorial Day break to take that national 
consensus and close the gap that often exists between what people are 
saying in the country and what we do here in the Congress.

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