[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12811-12812]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



         REPUBLICANS PUT NRA-BACKED POLITICS ABOVE OUR CHILDREN

  (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Speaker, Republicans need to decide who is more 
important to them, our children or their politics. Because if they want 
to play politics with the issue of gun safety, they should explain why 
to the parents of Sean Harvey of West Paterson in my home State of New 
Jersey. Sean did not live to see his 17th birthday because he was shot 
by a man who mistakenly thought he was stealing a

[[Page 12812]]

neighbor's car. Well, the car belonged to a friend of Sean's, and the 
gun used to kill him was unlicensed by a man with a list of prior 
offenses.
  This Congress has a responsibility to get these guns off the street 
and to make sure that everyone who buys a gun is subject to a 
background check. When it comes to keeping our children safe in their 
schools and in our neighborhoods, there should be no loopholes and no 
exceptions.
  There is nothing more important than the safety of our children, and 
it is a sad day in this House and this Nation when the Republican 
leadership gives the NRA all of the time necessary before the Memorial 
Day break to be able to work over Members and to create a process that 
is destined to failure, destined to fail our children in terms of 
safety, destined to fail the citizens of this country in terms of 
safety and destined to ensure the NRA's victory.

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