District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009

Floor Speech

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HOUSE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 2009 -- (Senate - February 25, 2009)

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to a dangerous amendment that would go far beyond authorizing gun possession for self-defense in the home and create serious threats to public safety, and that is the Ensign amendment.

First, I support the Lieberman bill to bring representation to the District of Columbia, which seems to be in total keeping with what America is all about. I just say to my good friend from Oklahoma that representation, of course, involves dealing with taxation, but it involves many other things. To simply say the people of the District of Columbia don't have to pay any taxes but would be deprived of other rights in these Chambers, to me, is not what this bill is all about. It is a fine bill and a long overdue bill. It is a compromise, obviously. But it is one that moves us up the steps to gaining representation for the hundreds of thousands of the hard-working, taxpaying citizens of the District of Columbia.

Now, of course, we are getting into the sort of season of irrelevant or controversial amendments. The Ensign amendment is certainly the second of those. Let me say this: The Heller case basically said there is an individual right to bear arms. I have some degree of sympathy with those who are in the pro-gun movement who say: Hey, so many Americans look to expand the first amendment, the fourth amendment, and the fifth and sixth amendments broadly, and then see the second amendment through a narrow pinhole, saying that it is only involving militias.

If you believe in a broad and expansive Constitution, how is it that just one of them is perceived as narrow as possible? The Heller decision says it is not just militias that have a right to bear arms, or members of them, but individuals. But every Justice in that case, including Justice Scalia, made the opposite point. Just as those in the pro-gun movement have some justification in saying it is unfair to regard every amendment expansively except the second, those of us who believe more in gun control have the right to say that every amendment has a limitation.

I am a strong believer in the first amendment, but I don't vote against libel laws or pornography laws. I certainly agree with, I believe Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said: You cannot falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. So those are limitations on the first amendment. I say to my friends in the pro-gun movement, if every other amendment has limitations, such as the first, fourth, fifth, sixth--and many on that side of the aisle are for more strict limitations on those amendments than we might be--how is it that the second amendment should not have any limitation?

This proposal by Senator Ensign, my friend from Nevada, just shows the absurdity of that argument because there are things in this amendment that people would say defy common sense. It defies common sense to say someone who was voluntarily committed to a mental institution should be allowed to get a gun. It defies common sense to say someone who can't pass a sight test should have a right to a gun. It defies common sense to say a 10-year-old has a right to carry a shotgun. Yet in the defense of an overly expansive view of the second amendment, even conceding that it does apply to these individuals, my colleague from Nevada wishes to say those things. Again, how many people in America think if you fail a sight test, you should have a right to a gun? You might say some sight tests are faulty. Well, change the test. How many people would say someone who has been in a mental institution--voluntarily committed--should have the right to have a gun?

This is about Washington, DC, but didn't we learn on the campus of Virginia Tech about the destructive link when mentally ill people are allowed to acquire guns? Wasn't the country in an uproar about that? Yet here, just a few short years later, as parents of those slain students are still mourning, we are about to say in the District of Columbia, a neighboring jurisdiction, if you not just have a mental illness, but it has to be pretty significant if you have been in a mental institution, you should have a right to have a gun.

So all we are trying to do in opposing the Ensign amendment is invoke common sense. We are not getting into the discussion of whether the second amendment applies to individuals or just to those in militias. The Supreme Court has ruled on that. We are saying to our friends, just as they get up on the floor and advocate limitations on every other amendment, it is contradictory to say the second amendment should not have the most reasonable of limitations. There can't be a more reasonable restriction than the requirement that someone be required to see before they are allowed on the streets with a gun. It just doesn't make sense.

One other point: My colleagues on the other side of the aisle tend to advocate for States rights in the broad balance of things. The States should have the ability to make these decisions. It is clear the District of Columbia, with its high crime rate, is not Nevada, Wyoming, or Nebraska. It is clear that firearms cause far more damage in the District of Columbia than they do in many other States. Why shouldn't the citizens of the District of Columbia have the right to determine, within constitutional confines, how those firearms may be used and who may have them? If you are for a State being able to decide so many other policies, and you don't like the encroaching Federal Government, why is it different for guns? I guess that is at the nub of the Ensign amendment, Mr. President.

Somehow the sponsor of this amendment seems to believe that guns are different from everything else. The supporters of this amendment seem to believe that guns are different from everything else--limitations on every other amendment but not the second amendment. States rights is a good thing, but not when it comes to the States' or localities' view to regulate guns. Why is it different?

If you want to cite the Heller case in defense of the individual right to bear arms, the Heller case also says--Justice Scalia--that restrictions on firearms that are reasonable, like bans on mentally ill people having access to guns, are constitutional and could be, and should be, decided by the citizens of Washington, DC.

So this amendment, make no mistake about it, if passed, will lead to needless maiming and deaths. It is a serious amendment; it is not frivolous. It goes way beyond a political statement on an important bill. I hope my colleagues will rise to the occasion and reject it.

I yield the floor.

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