[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 23]
[Senate]
[Page 31582]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           TODAY'S ARMS RACE

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the danger involved in combating crime in 
our Nation is escalating. Police departments across the country are 
being forced into a dangerous arms race with criminals and gangs. 
Increasingly confronted with assault rifles capable of firing up to 600 
rounds per minute, law enforcement officers have been forced to carry 
military-style arms in order to counter such criminal firearm 
supremacy.
  Recently, tensions have increased throughout south Florida's police 
departments after three Miami-Dade police officers were wounded and 
another killed by a man using an assault weapon. In a recent interview 
with CNN, Sergeant Laurie Pfeil, who supervises a sheriff's road patrol 
in Palm Beach County, stated that, ``It's not nice we have to arm 
ourselves like the soldiers in Iraq. We are like soldiers. It is a 
war.''
  Over 60 police officers have been gunned down so far this year in the 
United States. According to Robert Tessaro, the associate director for 
law enforcement relations for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun 
Violence, we are currently on pace to set an alltime high. ``We're 
having more than one officer shot and killed a week. It's just 
outrageous that officers are being targeted. It's something all 
Americans should be outraged about.'' Like many others, he lays the 
blame for this increase on the expiration of the assault weapons ban.
  ``It's different now. It's shootings on a weekly basis. Ten years 
ago, that just didn't happen. They don't get out and run from us 
anymore. They stop, and they're shooting at us,'' Sergeant Pfeil went 
on to say. ``They don't have .38s anymore. They have AK-47s . . . They 
have automatic weapons now.''
  Miami Chief of Police John Timoney said he began noticing a 
significant increase in the use of automatic weapons used in crimes 
dating from the time the assault weapons ban was permitted to lapse. 
This increase includes an 18 percent increase last year and 20 percent 
increase this year.
  The 1994 assault weapons ban prohibited the sale of 19 of the highest 
powered and most lethal firearms produced. Additionally, it prohibited 
the sale of semiautomatic weapons that incorporated a detachable 
magazine and two or more specific military features. These features 
included folding telescoping stocks, threaded muzzles or flash 
suppressors, protruding pistol grips, bayonet mounts, barrel shrouds, 
or grenade launchers.
  I voted to establish the assault weapons ban, and 10 years later I 
joined a bipartisan majority of the Senate in voting to extend the ban 
for another 10 years. Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming support 
of the law enforcement community, the ongoing threat of terrorism, and 
bipartisan support in the Senate, neither President Bush nor the 
Republican congressional leadership acted to protect Americans from 
assault weapons like the one used in the attack on the Miami-Dade 
police officers. As a result, police officers across the country are 
being forced to counter previously banned military-style assault 
weapons.
  This Congress, as in previous ones, I will once again cosponsor the 
reinstating the assault weapons ban. Congress must take up and pass 
this piece of sensible gun safety legislation to aid our law 
enforcement agencies and to help prevent such tragedies from occurring 
in the future.

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