[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 722-723]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN CONTROL

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, the Judiciary Committee will be 
holding hearings soon--and many times--on responding to mass killings 
such as the recent school shooting in Newtown, CT. Admittedly, that was 
a terrible tragedy. We are all sympathetic to the families of the 
victims of that horrendous crime.
  President Obama has asked Congress to pass legislation in response to 
that event. I look forward to the hearings the Judiciary Committee will 
hold on this very important subject because we need to know more about 
the problem and potential legislative action.
  There will be plenty of occasions to discuss specific gun, mental 
health, and other legislative responses to Newtown. Today, I would like 
to address the President's rhetoric when he announced his proposals.
  I was surprised at a number of the President's statements. For 
instance, he is directing the Centers for Disease Control to conduct 
research into the causes of gun violence. But gun violence is not a 
disease, and lawful gun ownership is not a disease. It is a 
constitutionally protected individual right--the famous second 
amendment right, not only part of the Constitution for 225 years but 
reinforced by two recent Supreme Court decisions.
  The President said we suffer from an ``epidemic of violence.'' 
Although there is too much violence in America, violent crime rates are 
at their lowest level in 50 years--not at epidemic levels, at least 
epidemic when compared to the last 50 years. There is a reason for 
that.
  Police practices and investigative techniques have improved, and we 
in the Congress have helped with grants to assist local law 
enforcement, higher incarceration rates for violent criminals, and an 
end to parole in the Federal system. Notably, crime rates are at their 
lowest level in 50 years at the very same time more guns are in 
circulation than ever before. But what has not declined is mass 
killings, such as we had in Newtown, CT. Of course, this should be our 
focus.
  But what the President said that most surprised me concerned the 
Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
  Let us consider principles first. The Declaration of Independence 
listed grievances against British Government action that violated 
individual natural rights of the colonists at that time.
  Even the declaration did not raise grievances against individuals or 
grant powers to government. The Constitution exists to create a limited 
federal government. As Madison wrote in Federalist 51:

       In framing a government which is to be administered by men 
     over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first 
     enable the government to control the governed; and in the 
     next place oblige it to control itself.

  In other words, the Government of the United States under the 
Constitution is a limited government, and the Constitution is to 
protect the people from the government, not for the government to give 
people rights and powers that the government then in turn could take 
away. On the other hand, the Constitution does give broad powers to the 
Federal Government, but it separates them among branches and between 
the State and National Governments.
  The Framers believed these structures would adequately control the 
government so as to protect individual liberty, but the American people 
disagreed. They believed the Constitution gave the Federal Government 
so much power that it could be tyrannical and violate individual 
rights. So as a condition of ratification, they demanded, and received, 
assurances that a bill of rights would be added to the Constitution. 
Each of those rights, including the second amendment dealing with guns, 
was adopted to yet further limit government power and to protect 
individual rights.
  In other words, the people who wrote the Constitution in 1787, in the 
spirit that they believed at the time, the Constitution, just the way 
it was originally written, was adequate to protect individual rights. 
But we were not going to get the Constitution adopted without the 
promise of a bill of rights. So the Bill of Rights went yet further, 
but the Bill of Rights is not a limiting factor as evidenced by the 
ninth amendment, which said none of the previous eight amendments in 
any way disparages the rights of citizens, all of those natural rights 
that are too big that we cannot even enumerate.
  Then, of course, the tenth amendment went on to say all powers not 
specifically given to the Federal Government are reserved to the States 
and the people thereof. Nothing in the Bill of Rights applied to the 
actions of private individuals or granted power to the Federal 
Government. So how far were the President's remarks from the intent of 
the Constitution's Framers?
  President Obama's remarks turned the Constitution on its head because 
he said:

       The right to worship freely and safely, that right was 
     denied to Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin.
       The right to assemble peacefully, that right was denied 
     shoppers in Clackamas, Oregon, and moviegoers in Aurora, 
     Colorado.
       That most fundamental set of rights to life and liberty and 
     the pursuit of happiness--[are] fundamental rights that were 
     denied to college students at Virginia Tech and high school 
     students at Columbine, and elementary school students in 
     Newtown.

  This is incorrect because except for its prohibition on slavery, the 
Constitution limits only the actions of government, not individuals. 
When a criminal commits murder, no constitutional right is violated. 
So, for instance, the right to peacefully assemble is all about 
protecting individual rights to organize, to protest, or seek to change 
government action. It is violated, for instance, when government 
officials hose down civil rights protesters on the sidewalk. That right 
is trivialized and mischaracterized as protecting shopping and watching 
movies. Those constitutional rights are not a source of government 
power to enact legislation, as I think the President has suggested. 
Quite the opposite. They are designed solely to preserve individual 
autonomy as against the government.
  Protecting individual rights rather than expanding governmental power 
may be particularly appropriate in addressing mass killings. One of the 
reasons so many people died in some of the tragedies the President 
cited was the failure of the Federal Government, the State government, 
or the local government, but government generally to protect its 
citizens.
  Police not on the scene cannot arrive at a mass shooting such as 
Newtown in time to stop it. At Columbine the police employed techniques 
that are no longer used because they did not stop killings that 
occurred after their arrival. At Virginia Tech, government officials 
made decisions after the shooting started that some even have argued 
may well have led to unnecessary deaths.
  The President cited constitutional protection of individual rights as 
a basis for expanding Federal power against private individuals. No 
wonder millions of Americans fear that Congress may enact legislation 
that could lead to a tyrannical Federal Government.
  I cannot accept the President's claim that ``there will be 
politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a 
tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty[,] not because that's true, but 
because they want to gin up fear.''
  The President reads the Constitution differently than it has ever 
been understood: as a source of power against individual rights rather 
than a check on government power that guarantees those individual 
rights. This necessarily and understandably leads many citizens to fear 
that their individual rights will be violated, and that extends well 
beyond the second amendment.

[[Page 723]]

  It should be a matter of deep concern to all of us when the President 
wants to use the power of government to corral individual rights. For 
225 years the Constitution has established a government that is a 
servant of the people, not its master. As the Judiciary Committee and 
all of us consider and debate legislation arising from the tragedy at 
Newtown, I hope we will proceed with the proper understanding of the 
relationship that the Constitution establishes between governmental 
power and individual liberty.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.

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