[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2796]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                              NRA RHETORIC

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                       HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 14, 2000

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, Shame, shame, shame. The NRA's 
leadership has once again shamed our nation, the American people, and 
its own members. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's Executive Vice President, on 
national television, suggested that the President of the United States 
promotes violence for his political gain. LaPierre said, ``I've come to 
believe that he needs a certain level of violence in this country. He's 
willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political 
agenda and his vice president too.''
  To all the parents who lost a son or daughter to gun violence, 
LaPierre is telling them to blame the President and not the guns. I 
would not be surprised to hear the NRA's leadership blaming school 
grief counselors of inciting more school shootings so they can have 
more business.
  How can the NRA leadership ignore the fact that thirteen children die 
each day from gun violence? How can they ignore the fact that a 
majority of Americans want Congress to pass sensible gun safety 
measures? How can they lay blame on a President who supports background 
checks at gun shows, a ban on the import of large-capacity ammunition 
clips, and the sale of child safety locks with every handgun?
  It's time for the NRA leadership to wake up and smell the gunpower in 
our communities and classrooms, and step out of the way of meaningful 
gun safety legislation. I submit the following New York Times editorial 
entitled ``Desperate Rhetoric from the NRA,'' for the Record.

                [From the New York Times, Mar. 14, 2000]

                   Desperate Rhetoric From the N.R.A.

       Americans have become used to hearing nutty talk from 
     leaders of the National Rifle Association. But Sunday's 
     outrageous assertion by the group's executive vice president, 
     Wayne LaPierre, that President Clinton is ``willing to accept 
     a certain level of killing to further his political agenda'' 
     deserves special condemnation.
       Mr. LaPierre made his sick suggestion that the president 
     relishes having gun tragedies to exploit in an interview on 
     ABC's ``This Week.'' He was there to push the N.R.A.'s 
     demonstrably false line that the nation already has enough 
     gun laws on the books if only the administration would 
     enforce them. Thanks largely to the N.R.A.'s lobbying, those 
     laws do not adequately address issues of supply, 
     distribution, design or child access.
       In a new advertising campaign the N.R.A.'s president, 
     Charlton Heston, accuses Mr. Clinton of engaging in lying and 
     scare tactics to win support for gun control measures bottled 
     up in Congress. But for dishonesty, it is hard to beat the 
     N.R.A.'s own whopper in trying to portray the group as a 
     friend of the reasonable gun safety measures it has been 
     fighting to defeat or water down.
       The sparring came just days after Mr. Clinton's meeting 
     with key Congressional leaders at the White House failed to 
     produce progress in freeing a modest gun control package from 
     the House-Senate conference committee where it has been 
     stalled for months. The sticking point remains the strong 
     gun-show provision that cleared the Senate last May over the 
     N.R.A.'s vehement opposition. This provision would extend to 
     gun-show sales the same background check requirement that now 
     applies to guns purchased from licensed dealers.
       Two Democratic senators, Charles Schumer of New York and 
     Richard Durbin of Illinois, are planning to step up the 
     pressure by attaching gun control amendments to other 
     legislation coming to the floor. This will force recorded 
     votes on matters with broad public support, like mandatory 
     trigger locks and background checks of buyers at gun shows, 
     flea markets and Internet sales.
       Only two weeks ago a 6-year-old killed a classmate with a 
     handgun, one of many reasons gun regulation promises to be an 
     issue in the long political campaign ahead. The chief 
     obstacle to saner gun control remains the obstructionism of 
     the N.R.A., whose extremist views and rhetoric should offend 
     Americans fed up with all the gunfire.

     

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