Providing for Consideration of H.R. 6842, National Capital Security and Safety Act

Floor Speech

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 6842, NATIONAL CAPITAL SECURITY AND SAFETY ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 16, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. NORTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I very much appreciate that the Rules Committee, under the gentleman, has made the Waxman-Norton Home Rule bill in order, and particularly Chairman Waxman for affording a hearing which exposed the dangers of this bill, so much so that the NRA was driven back to the drawing board to change at least some of it. Unfortunately, they've left a very dangerous bill anyway.

Our Home Rule bill says 180 days after the Heller decision, the District must respond, and, of course, within two weeks it had responded. Council was about to go out of town; could have gone out of town and waited until the Council reconvened today, but it allowed registration to occur by passing a stopgap measure. It didn't change much because there was no time for hearings. But Heller himself, Dick Heller, has registered under that bill.

They are voting, ironically, as I speak, on a permanent bill that I think every Second Amendment advocate would support because it more than meets the Heller decision.

Mr. Speaker, I understand the very painful dilemma that the Democratic leadership and our own caucus has been put in. 5 days after commemoratingÐ9/11, Democrats were met in a dark alley with a ``do or die'' demand from the NRA pointing a proverbial gun at their re-election. This puts many Democrats in a terrible position.

For example, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer have spent their careers protecting the Federal presence. They have spent their careers supporting home rule and voting against bills just like the substitute amendment which has been made in order.

It is this substitute amendment which has dismayed and, I must tell you, even angered many in this House, because what the rule gives with one hand, it takes back with another.

Some people are dismayed because they are gun safety advocates, and we haven't been able to get a new assault weapon bill passed through the House.

Some people are dismayed because it is the energy bill they want to continue to talk about and other national business, and now they're talking about a local council issue.

Some are dismayed because they've always supported home rule. And some are dismayed because this is a bill that threatens, in the worst way, the Federal presence. We're putting not just the District at risk. That's par for the course. We're putting the entire Federal presence, every Federal official, every dignitary, from the President of the United States to Federal employees working in cabinet agencies, every man, woman and child who works, visits or lives in the District of Columbia, is put at risk by a bill that the NRA has insisted come to the floor.

We have before us, if this bill passes, one of the most permissive gun laws in the country. Post-9/11, the United States House of Representatives would be passing a bill, should this rule survive, that arms an entirely new set of people that most jurisdictions would prefer not to have guns at all, children. No age limit, for example. People just released from a mental institution, like John Hinckley, that is people who are voluntarily committed and then released, people convicted of very serious crimes, all could get a gun because of the NRA bill. Why?

The Waxman-Norton bill passed 21-1 because there wasn't any reason to vote against it and because people didn't want to be seen voting against such a bill.

So why the substitute?

The short answer, Mr. Speaker, is because the NRA says so. It's a short answer. It's a long answer. It's the only answer. NRA has proudly announced to every reporter in town that they wrote the bill, that they told the Members what to do, and that's why the bill is coming to the floor. They have used a combination of campaign funds and, frankly, terror in the hearts of some Democrats at least about their own re-election. Who knows if the NRA will succeed, but people are afraid.

The public lie that's being pandered here is that the NRA bill was necessary because the District isn't complying and won't comply. Never mind that if D.C. didn't comply Congress could overturn District law because Congress can overturn any law the Council passes. But D.C. has already begun to comply. They put in a stopgap measure. Heller is, in fact, registered. They did that as they were going out of town.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlewoman another 2 minutes.

Ms. NORTON. As we're speaking, the Council is voting on permanent legislation that no gun supporter could oppose. It puts no limit on the number of guns you could have in your homes. It allows unlocked semi-automatic firearms in the home, and it uses other measures to protect District residents and to protect the Federal presence, such as restrictions, for example, on the age when a child can get a gun.

But Members are being asked to cast a dangerous vote on a dangerous rule, followed by a vote on a dangerous bill that not only has no public purpose, but flies in the face of the overriding public purpose of the Congress of the United States since 9/11, and of the current administration, to protect the country beginning with protecting the Nation's Capital.

You didn't hear it from me. You heard it from the Capitol Police if you were at the hearing. You heard it from the Park Police which has jurisdiction throughout the region. You heard it. These are the Federal police that have enforcement authority. And you heard it from the head of the D.C. Police Department, the largest Police Department in the region, the woman who set up the Department's Homeland Security section, which put her in daily touch with the top Federal security network.

I have no idea, Mr. Speaker, what will happen if this matter passes this session. I know what I will do. But even if the danger penetrates here or in the Senate, let me give you fair warning, your districts are going to hear about what you do today. This has been blown up into a national matter because you are threatening the safety of the entire Federal presence and every dignitary and every Federal employee here.

No Member of Congress who regards herself or himself as responsible Members should want their name attached in the 110th Congress to this bill, not to the attached bill. I ask you to consider that before you go home and try to explain why you endangered the President of the United States and visitors to Washington like themselves.

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