[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 5940-5941]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        THE POWER OF LEADERSHIP

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Jersey for 
raising this important issue of gun safety.
  One of the most important powers of the leadership on Capitol Hill is 
the power to schedule a hearing, the power to bring a bill to the 
floor, the power to tell a committee to bring a bill forward so it can 
be considered.
  Currently, the Republicans are in control of the Senate as well as 
the House of Representatives, and they have this awesome congressional 
power and responsibility. Over the last several days, there have been 
calls from the leadership, the Speaker of the House as well as the 
majority leader of the Senate, that this Senate and House basically 
drop what they are doing and start gathering information and 
documentation for an emergency hearing on the question of what occurred 
in Miami, FL, last Saturday morning. That is to the exclusion of a lot 
of other things that could be considered by the Congress of the United 
States.
  The Hill newspaper and others have talked about this Republican 
fervor over investigating Attorney General Janet Reno and others about 
the Elian Gonzalez controversy. This is an important issue. It has 
certainly captured the imagination of many Americans and the attention 
of the press and a lot

[[Page 5941]]

of politicians. I think it is worth looking into to consider the 
procedures that have been used and could be used. But would we step 
back and say, when we look at the state of America today, that this is 
the single most important thing that we should be doing right here on 
Capitol Hill? My guess is, in my home State of Illinois, the State of 
Ohio, as well as many other States, families might suggest: Before you 
get into that, could you take a look at education? Could you take a 
look at reducing violent crime in our country? Could you consider a 
Patients' Bill of Rights so if someone gets sick in my family, the 
doctor can make the medical decision instead of the insurance company? 
And while you are at it, my mother or grandmother is on Medicare and 
can't pay for her prescription drugs. Could you take a look at that 
incidentally? Is that something you could put on your priority list?
  Quite honestly, those things will come out in polls across America as 
things about which people are concerned. They would like us to drop, 
perhaps, our focus on a 6-year-old boy from Cuba for just a few minutes 
and think about education, think about reducing gun violence in 
America, a Patients' Bill of Rights, a prescription drug benefit. 
Sadly, those items are not on the agenda. They don't capture the 
attention of the Republican leadership. Their attention is on this 6-
year-old boy.
  I hope we can focus the attention of Congress on some other issues. I 
hope we can earn our pay for a change and consider some bills and some 
laws that just might improve the quality of life of families across 
America. I kind of thought that was part of our job. We were elected 
from 50 different States to come here to show some leadership and 
respond to the people back home to make America a better place to live.
  Senator Torricelli of New Jersey talked about gun safety. We are just 
a few days away from the first anniversary, the sad anniversary of the 
tragedy at Columbine High School. That focused America's attention. It 
shocked us to believe that a high school in the suburbs of Denver could 
end up having this tragedy visited upon it and 12 children who got up 
and went to school never came home.
  We saw that the two students who started this rampage got their guns 
from gun shows. We decided in Congress we had to do something. So we 
brought a bill forward, a gun safety bill, that had three basic 
provisions in it. The bill said, if you buy a gun at a gun show, we 
want to know whether you are legally disqualified from owning a gun. Of 
course, if you buy it from a gun dealer, we already make that inquiry. 
We want to know if you have a criminal record. We want to know if you 
happen to be a fugitive, a stalker, a wife beater, someone who is 
ineligible because they are too young, someone who has a history of 
violent mental illness. If we are going to preserve the second 
amendment right to own and bear arms, many of us believe we want to 
keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's 5 minutes have expired.
  Mr. DURBIN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DURBIN. The sportsmen and hunters in the State of Illinois and 
those I speak to around the country tend to agree. They want to use 
their guns legally and safely. They want to keep them away from 
criminals and children.
  We put in the provision of this law a background check at gun shows. 
How frequent are gun shows? Come to downstate Illinois; they are pretty 
frequent. They have them at civic centers, all sorts of different 
places. We are not the leading State for gun shows. The leading State 
for gun shows is Texas. I will return to that in a moment.
  Secondly, we said, let's have trigger locks sold with guns. As 
Senator Torricelli said earlier, 43 percent of guns are sitting around 
residences within easy access of children. How many times do you pick 
up the paper and read about a kid playing with a gun, shooting himself 
or a playmate? How many parents say, we don't have guns in our house 
because we think it is dangerous. But do you know whether your 
playmate's family has guns lying around. Who is so naive to believe 
that children never find Christmas gifts or guns? They go looking and 
they find them. Sometimes tragedy results.
  We want trigger locks so the guns are secure, so a child who picks up 
that gun can't harm himself or others. Is this a radical idea? I think 
it is as sensible an idea as putting brakes on a car.
  Finally, Senator Feinstein added an amendment which said we don't 
want to import high-capacity ammo clips from overseas that can only be 
used for the semiautomatic and automatic weapons to sweep bullets in 
every direction. I have said that if you need a semiautomatic weapon or 
an assault weapon to shoot a deer, you ought to stick to fishing. Far 
too many people in this country think this is an invasion of second 
amendment rights. Too many people argue that we shouldn't even have 
these reasonable regulations in gun ownership.
  We passed this bill that I am talking about on the floor of the 
Senate by one vote. Vice President Gore, as is his right under the 
Constitution, came to this Chair and voted. We passed the bill and sent 
it to the House. That was over 10 months ago. The bill, of course, was 
then subject to the National Rifle Association and all of the gun lobby 
beating up on it. They passed a terrible alternative to it. It has now 
been sitting in a conference committee month after weary month. We 
cannot summon the political will or courage to bring a gun safety bill 
out here to try to make the streets, the schools, and, yes, the zoos of 
America safe for families and children. No. We want to have an 
emergency hearing on a 6-year-old boy from Cuba. We want to drop 
everything. We want to subpoena all of the documents. This summons is 
more important. I think they are wrong.
  When it comes to education, we have tried to focus on smaller class 
sizes so teachers can spend more time with kids who need help. We have 
tried to focus on afterschool programs so during that period of time 
when the school let's out before mom and dad get home kids have a 
chance to stay in a supervised situation at school so they can be 
tutored; if they are falling behind, enrichment classes if they are 
kids who are doing well; play a little sports but do something under 
supervision; summer school for the same reason--so that education 
starts reflecting the reality of family life.
  We think we can focus as well on a Patients' Bill of Rights so we can 
say that doctors will make medical decisions and not insurance company 
clerks. Every medical group in America, nurses and doctors--all of 
them--support us. We would like to see the decisions on the future of 
each family's health made by health care professionals and not by 
people looking at the bottom line of an insurance company. We believe a 
prescription drug benefit is a high priority.
  I had hearings across Illinois, and I have seen it across the Nation. 
There are people who are literally deciding between food and medicine. 
Elderly and disabled people can't afford the medicine their doctors 
prescribe. So they do not fill the prescriptions. They cut the pills in 
half. They do things they shouldn't do, and they get sick. When they 
get sick, what happens? They end up in a hospital. If they end up in a 
hospital, guess what. Medicare will pay the bills now. We wouldn't pay 
for the pills to keep them out of the hospital but we will pay for the 
pills when they get sick and go to a hospital.
  We think a prescription drug benefit makes sense. We think that is 
what we should be debating on the floor of the Senate. But we do not. 
Another week passes by. We consider a lot of other things, and families 
across America return to ask us: Where are your priorities? What are 
you thinking about?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. DURBIN. I will conclude. I thank you, Mr. President, for the time 
you have given me this morning and hope that the leadership on Capitol 
Hill will


feel the same passion, the same intensity, and have the same commitment 
to issues that American families care about than they do about one 
family from Cuban.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

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