[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19645-19646]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           OUR FIRST OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE TO PROTECT AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I don't propose to take an hour, but I do 
propose to bring a very important issue before the House and before the 
American people. Today we had our first opportunity to really move to 
protect Americans.
  Presently, if you are on the no-fly list, which is not easy to get 
on--there has to be some very specific reason why you could be a threat 
to American citizens, to the airplane on which you might be traveling, 
or you might be entering this country for some nefarious reason, like 
terrorism.

[[Page 19646]]

  But if you are on the no-fly list and you do happen to be in America, 
you can go to a gun store or to perhaps any fairground where there is a 
gun show and you can buy a weapon, virtually any gun, an assault 
weapon, a handgun, a shotgun.
  And the question arises: If you are too dangerous to fly, are you not 
too dangerous to buy a gun?
  But, under American law today, you can, indeed, be too dangerous to 
fly. You could be a threat to the other passengers or to a tower, to an 
airplane. But, apparently, you are not a threat to buy a gun.
  In fact, there are some 16,000 people, a very small portion of the 
American citizenry, that are on the no-fly list. Since 9/11 in 2001, 
more than 2,000 men, probably women, who are too dangerous to fly on 
the no-fly list have been able to purchase guns here in the United 
States.
  So let's see if we get this straight. You have been designated by the 
Department of Homeland Security and the various Federal Government 
agencies--TSA, FBI, quite possibly the CIA, and others--as being a 
threat to the security and safety of America and Americans, and you are 
put on a no-fly list, meaning you can't get on an airplane.

                              {time}  1900

  You are not able to buy a ticket, you are not able to travel, and yet 
you find some way to go down to the local gun store in those States 
that do not have background checks or maybe a gun show where there are 
no background checks, you present yourself and say: ``Oh, that is a 
pretty good-looking AR-14. I'd like to have it.''
  ``Sure, you got the money?''
  ``I got the money.''
  ``Here is the gun.''
  This makes no sense whatsoever. Somehow I think the American public 
gets this. If you are too dangerous to fly, then you are too dangerous 
to be able to buy a gun in America. It is that simple. There ought to 
be a law, but there is no law.
  Here in the House of Representatives, many of us have been trying 
for, actually, several years to deal with this crazy loophole in our 
gun safety laws; yet we have been unable to have a bill come to the 
House floor where 435 of us that represent all of the American citizens 
will have an opportunity to vote on whether we believe that, if you are 
too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun.
  So today my fellow Democratic representatives and I--about 135 of us 
thus far--have signed what is known as a discharge petition so that a 
bipartisan piece of legislation introduced by Representative King of 
New York, who is a Republican, could be brought to the floor and all of 
us face the responsibility of selecting whose side do we stand on. Do 
we stand for the safety of Americans and prevent people that are too 
dangerous to fly from being able to buy a gun, or do we stand with 
those on the no-fly list that are presumably dangerous and say: ``Oh, 
yeah, you ought to be able to buy a gun even though you are too 
dangerous to fly''?
  Now, for my American friends out there, all of you, voters and 
nonvoters, don't you think it is time for your Representatives, 435 of 
us, to stand before you in this House and say: ``We agree that if you 
are too dangerous to fly, then you are too dangerous to buy a gun, and 
you cannot buy a gun,'' or stand here before all the American public 
and say: ``No, no, no. If you are too dangerous to fly, go ahead and 
buy a gun''?
  So, Mr. Speaker, that is what a discharge petition will do. It will 
take our Republican friend's bill, Mr. King of New York, bring it to 
the floor and put the issue before your Representatives, before the 
representatives of the American people, and cause us to make a choice 
for your safety or for the presumed right of a person who is too 
dangerous to fly to be able to buy a gun. It is pretty simple stuff. We 
will see what happens.
  That issue is now bubbling around here on the floor. Today there were 
four motions to adjourn, which is a way of disrupting the normal 
procedures of the House--which are terribly abnormal to begin with--and 
causing the attention of the membership of the House and the press from 
the press box, or wherever they happen to be, to focus on this one--
one--issue: whether those 16,000 or so people that are on the no-fly 
list can also go out and buy a gun. Two thousand already have.
  By the way, Mr. Speaker, we ought to quickly discuss this issue of, 
well, there is a constitutional issue here, an issue in which these 
people are on a list but they have no ability to get off--no. Not so. 
Not so. When the no-fly list was first put together following 9/11, the 
issue was raised of the constitutionality of it by the American Civil 
Liberties Organization. It went to a Federal court, and the Federal 
court said: No, we disagree with you. We believe this is a 
constitutionally authorized protection of the American public, and 
there is a procedure for an individual to petition to get off the list. 
So this issue of constitutionality was decided some years ago by a 
Federal court.
  So, Mr. Speaker, the arguments that you will undoubtedly hear here 
about this being, oh, an infringement of the constitutional right for 
an individual to buy a gun, no. This issue has already been resolved. 
If you are on the no-fly list and you think you shouldn't be there, you 
have got a procedure, a program underway and available to you to remove 
yourself from the no-fly list, and the court said it meets 
constitutional muster.
  So, taking it a step further, we know a lot of Americans of certain 
classes that cannot buy a gun: criminals, convicted felons, people that 
in some States have been involved in domestic violence, and people that 
have exhibited mental health issues. Those people are barred in many 
cases from not being able to buy a gun. So we would add to that 
category people that our law enforcement agencies have deemed to be 
dangerous, quite possibly terrorists, or abiding and assisting 
terrorist organizations. If you can't fly, we just simply say that you 
can't buy a gun also--pretty simple.
  My Republican colleague, Mr. King, is correct. The issue is not 
resolved. The issue will be back before us tomorrow, the 9th day of 
December, for those of us that believe that if you are too dangerous to 
fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun. Those of us that believe this 
to be the right policy will continue to push this issue for the safety 
of Americans.
  Mr. Speaker, 16,000 people may not be able to buy a gun if this 
becomes law, and that is a good thing, because we know already 2,000 
people that are on that no-fly list--actually, more than 2,000--have 
been able to buy a gun. What did they do with it? Well, maybe they went 
out and shot quail, or maybe--we pray not, but we don't know, do we?
  So, Mr. Speaker, the issue is before us, as are many, many important 
issues, but I don't think there is any issue more important than the 
safety of the American people. We know that if somebody is thought to 
be dangerous, then they ought not have a gun.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that this House will see the wisdom of taking a 
small step and denying some 16,000 people, many of whom are probably 
not even American citizens, the opportunity to buy a gun.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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