[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12008]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  FOLLOW THE TEXT OF THE CONSTITUTION

  (Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California asked and was given permission 
to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Speaker, this week the 
United States Supreme Court actually decided a constitutional question 
of extreme importance, and it had to deal with the right of individuals 
to keep and bear arms. The interesting thing was they reached this 
conclusion by looking at the text of the Constitution, the words of the 
Second Amendment. What a shame we didn't do that last week when we were 
dealing with the DISCLOSE Act, where we essentially eviscerated the 
First Amendment, the First Amendment protection for political speech.
  Instead of saying that it exists for all and that we should protect 
it for all, we decided that some are more equal than others. We 
auctioned off parts of the First Amendment last week. Let us hope that 
the Senate will not repeat that mistake, and that we understand that 
perhaps the best way to understand what the Constitution means is to 
actually look at its words. Sometimes you can find the rights expressed 
there far more easily than looking at penumbras and those that emanate 
from penumbras. At times it makes sense for us to pay attention to what 
the Founding Fathers actually said.

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