Expiration of Assault Weapons Ban

EXPIRATION OF ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN

Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Chair.

I thank my colleague from California for her leadership and her eloquence on this issue. She has done a wonderful job, and I hope that her pleas to the White House and to the House are heeded.

We stand on the floor today debating an amendment to the Constitution for which there is already a statute that does the same thing. We are ignoring basic needs. Instead of debating this amendment, why aren't we debating homeland security? Last Friday there was a warning issued to all of us, a severe warning, yet the Homeland Security bill, despite the warning that was issued to us on Friday, languishes.

We are here today to bring up another important issue-people's lives and these kinds of weapons, which thankfully have been banned on our streets for the last 10 years and, woefully, may be back on our streets 2 months from today if we do nothing.

That is the bottom line. The assault weapons ban has been an amazing success. It is supported by the American people overwhelmingly. Yesterday a poll showed that 79 percent support renewal. Today a new poll showed that in the swing States, Midwestern and Southern States, where there are large numbers of gun owners, overwhelming majorities support the ban. Gun owners support the ban. Law enforcement supports the ban. The list that my colleague from California showed is lengthy and comprehensive.

So why wouldn't something that has saved lives, that has been so successful, that has helped bring down the crime rate not be brought up on the floor of the House and is in danger of lapsing? One simple word: Politics. Politics of a small few who seem to call the dance when it comes to dealing with issues like this Street Sweeper.

Point one is that these weapons are not made for hunting. They are not made for self-defense. They were designed by armies to kill a lot of people quickly. They are never used by good people, who certainly have a right to bear arms. In fact, recently al-Qaida told its membership in a training manual found by the U.S. military that terrorists should use America's weak gun laws to get serious weapons and to try to get assault weapons. Terrorists want these weapons, drug dealers want these weapons, criminals want these weapons. Police men and women do not want these weapons, hunters do not want these weapons, small store owners who carry a small sidearm for self-defense don't want these weapons.

Why do we have to be on the Senate floor pleading with the President and the House for renewal of a law that has been so successful? Again, one word: Politics. A small group of fanatical people somehow have an ideological mission that they must restore these weapons to our streets. They don't represent gun owners. They don't represent the North or the South or the East or the West. They represent their own misguided ideology. But the President, who is on the campaign trail talking about leadership, cowers and shakes before this small group of ideologues. He has said he is for the renewal of the assault weapons ban. But according to the House leadership, he has not mentioned once to them that he would like the bill to be on the floor of the House of Representatives. The Speaker of the House says that we need the President to get this going. The President says the House should do it. It is a classic Abbott and Costello routine, a shell game, a classic duck the consequences, or the worst aspects of politics.

The bottom line is that if George Bush wanted the assault weapons ban to be renewed, it would be. All he would have to do is pick up the phone once and call Speaker Hastert and say put it on the floor of the House; and on the floor of the House it would pass, just as it passed this body a few months ago when the Senator from California and I offered it. And then the President would sign it.

But the President thinks he can get away with this, that he can get away with this nasty little game; that he will keep happy his hard-core small number of supporters who believe these weapons should be on the streets, and he will not pay the price.

Mr. President, I cannot predict how our politics will work out in the next few months. But it is my guess that if this ban is not renewed, and AK-47s, Street Sweepers, and Uzis are back on our streets, starting 2 months from today, that the President will pay a political price for it. That is no solace to me. That is no solace to my colleague from California. We would much rather have this renewed, as everybody knows it should be.

No hunter, no gun owner has been hurt by the inability to carry an Uzi. Some criminals have been hurt, terrorists have been hurt, but no legitimate citizen who certainly has a right to bear arms. And I support the second amendment, but I don't support the view that it should be seen through a pi hole.

We make one last plea-and we have 13 legislative days left-to the President of these United States to step up to the plate, show real leadership, and ask that the assault weapons ban be put on the floor of the House of Representatives, and that it be renewed because it has been successful and good for just about everybody.

I ask unanimous consent to have several articles printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

[From the New York Times, April 20, 2004]

TARGETING VOTERS IN THE WORST WAY

It is not quite the same as kissing babies, but Vice President Dick Cheney beamed as he handled an antique rifle for his photo-op last weekend at the National Rifle Association convention. Mr. Cheney, the administration's most famous duck hunter, was on a reassurance mission, drawing cheers as he trumpeted President Bush's commitment to hunters' constitutional rights. Mr. Cheney attacked Senator John Kerry, the Democratic challenger, as a firearms wuss, despite Mr. Kerry's beady-eyed display last fall when he blasted pheasants from the Iowa skies in his own vote-hunting foray.

Mr. Cheney's personal visit signaled how much of a fence-mending charade the White House is staging to soothe the politically powerful gun lobby. Some N.R.A. members are still miffed at Mr. Bush's ostensible promise-left over from his 2000 campaign-to sign a renewal of the 10-year-old ban on assault weapons if that vitally needed measure should ever manage to be passed by the Republican-controlled Congress. But, of course, the Capitol's pro-gun leadership has already made sure that the president's promise bobs as lifelessly as an election-year decoy.

Banning assault rifles simply protects society from fast-fire attack weapons designed for waging war, not hunting. But Mr. Bush never once pressed Congress to pass the renewal. Instead, he spent his political capital on the gun lobby's outrageous proposal to grant immunity from damage suits to irresponsible gun manufacturers and dealers.

This is the Bush-Cheney team's true record on gun control. Too few voters are aware that the assault weapons ban will certainly expire in September while the president declines to lift a finger to save it. The law's demise looms as another national gun tragedy, even as politicians in both parties calibrate how much more pandering to gun owners will be needed in the hunt for votes in the swing states.

[From the Post-Standard, June 27, 2004]

CONSIDER THIS

The assault weapons ban might not have become law a decade ago without an assist from what some might consider an unexpected quarter-former president Ronald Reagan.

Already out of office, Reagan nevertheless expended what political capital he had left to lobby fellow Republicans. The measure passed the House by just two votes.

That same assault weapons ban, which has been doing its job keeping lethal weaponry out of the hands of criminals all these years, is set to expire in September. While President Bush says he'll sign a continuation of the ban, he doesn't appear willing to lift a trigger-finger on its behalf. And the assault weapons lobby seems to have Congress in its back pocket. Unless . . .

Well, unless the president is willing to spend a little of his own political capital, do the right thing and push for the ban. It shouldn't be hard. After all, he'd be doing it for "The Gipper."

[From the Detroit Free Press, May 7, 2004]

ASSAULT GUNS; MOMS MARCH FOR A NEEDED RENEWAL OF NATIONAL BAN

Thousands will gather on Mother's Day Sunday in Washington, D.C., including at least 500 people from Michigan, to join the Million Mom March and push Congress for a needed renewal of the assault weapons ban. Lawmakers should listen.

Renewing the ban is a modest and commonsense step that is supported by most Americans, while vociferously opposed by the powerful gun lobby.

Shikha Hamilton, president of the Million Mom March in Detroit, says the group wants to hold President George W. Bush to his promise of support for the ban, which will expire in September unless Congress renews it.

The ban covers 19 kinds of assault weapons and has significantly reduced the frequency with which these guns are used in
crimes.

To be sure, it has not solved the problem of gun violence. Manufacturers have gotten around the ban by making minor changes. People can legally, and easily, buy parts that, put together, will turn a legal gun into an illegal one. It's also obvious that all people must be held accountable for how they use guns.

That said, the 1994 ban has slowed the flow of assault weapons onto the street. Letting it expire would undo years of work by groups fighting for sensible gun laws.

Some pro-gun activists will try to depict Million Mom March as an extremist group trying to scrap the Second Amendment. It is not.

A modest federal law to restrict military-style guns whose only purpose is to mow people down ought to make sense to any member of Congress not under the undue influence of the gun lobby.

For more information on the march, go to www.millionmommarch.com

[From the Atlanta Journal-Constituion, March 5, 2004]

PRY CONGRESS FROM COLD, DEADLY CLUTCH OF THE NRA

Those who say that negotiating with the gun lobby is like making a deal with the devil owe the archfiend an apology.

For months, the National Rifle Association has lobbied hard for passage of a bill that would make the gun industry immune to civil lawsuits. The measure-the NRA's top legislative priority-had already passed the House, and this week was close to passage in the Senate as well, until NRA lobbyists stepped in at the last minute and ordered that the bill be killed.

Why the sudden change of heart? Because Democrats and moderate Republicans had succeeded in attaching two quite sensible, reasonable gun-safety measures to the bill. One amendment extended the 1994 ban on military-style assault weapons that's set to expire in September; the other closed a loophole that permitted people to buy firearms at gun shows without having to undergo instant background checks.

Officially, President Bush backs both measures, although he has done nothing to support them. According to a recent survey by the Consumer Federation of America, the assault rifle ban is also supported by a majority of the nation's gun owners. The assault weapons ban is particularly important to law enforcement officers, who had pleaded with Congress to renew the ban and also close the gun show loophole. According to the Justice Department, the proportion of banned assault weapons traced to crimes had dropped by 65.8 percent since 1995, most likely as a result of that law.

Nonetheless, U.S. Sen. Zell Miller was among six Democrats who voted against renewing the ban on military-style assault weapons. "First of all, the term 'assault' was dreamed up to give the weapons included a bad name. Who could be for an 'assault weapons'? The definition is really 'semi-automatic,' and about 15 percent of all firearms owned in the U.S. meet the definition," said Miller.

Had the gun-immunity bill passed, it would have voided hundreds of pending lawsuits, including those filed by more than 30 cities devastated by gun violence and by dozens of shooting victims and their families. For example, it would have slammed shut the courthouse door to the families of the victims of Beltway snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. The families are suing Bull's Eye Shooter Supply, the Washington state gun shop where Malvo either bought or stole the semi-automatic rifle used to slaughter 10 people. Between 2000 and 2003, the gun shop somehow "lost" 230 other guns from its inventory.

Bull's Eye tried to have the case dismissed, but the courts ruled that the store had some responsibility to ensure its firearms didn't fall into the hands of criminals. The judge relied on the established legal principle that a person who carelessly furnishes a criminal an open opportunity to commit a crime can be held liable.

The NRA and its supporters want to give the gun industry an immunity to being sued that no other American industry enjoys. As they have demonstrated, they want that immunity only on their terms, with no compromise and no tolerance for any effort that might reduce the toll in lost and broken lives attributed to guns. And while that absolutist approach is troubling, the docile willingness of so many in Congress to accommodate that extremism is more troubling still.

[From the Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2004]

NRA'S EYE IS FIXED ON BUSH

Just under four months from today, Americans will be able to walk out of a gun store with an AK-47 rifle, an Uzi or other weapon of mass murder under their arm.

Unless Congress acts-and Republican leaders show no inclination to do so-the 10-year-old federal assault gun ban will expire Sept. 13. A word from President Bush would get a renewal before lawmakers, a majority of whom would probably approve it. But the president is silent.

Most people, including most gun owners, are properly alarmed. A survey released last month by the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 71% of those surveyed and 64% of gun owners wanted Congress to extend the ban.

But congressional leaders, too accustomed to taking marching orders from the National Rifle Assn., have stymied the reauthorization bill that Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) introduced last year.

The 1994 ban bars the manufacture and importation of 19 specific semiautomatic gun models and other models with similar features. These are not hunting weapons; what they do best is mow down humans, from factory workers to 6-year-olds in a school cafeteria. That's why Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton and his colleagues in other cities steadfastly support renewing the ban. Bans by the states on such weapons, including California's, would stay in effect. But there would be no bar against Californians buying such guns in Nevada or elsewhere.

The NRA disingenuously insists that the federal law is flawed because it prohibits some guns while permitting virtually identical weapons cosmetically tweaked to evade the law's reach. But when Feinstein proposed a more inclusive ban, similar to California's, which defines assault guns by their generic characteristics, the NRA crushed it. It also blocked her effort to close a loophole in the current law that allows importation of high-capacity bullet clips.

However tempting it is to blame Congress for the stalemate over this bill, the leadership failure is really the president's. Bush has said he backs the ban. He also wants the NRA's political endorsement, which the gun group is withholding until after the ban expires. So Bush has put no pressure on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) or House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to move Feinstein's measure or its House counterpart.

If Bush says the word, Frist and Hastert will put the gun ban extension before their colleagues for a vote. And if Bush means it when he says his top priority is to keep Americans safe, he will do just that.

[From the Los Angeles Times, July 13, 2004]

RELOAD THE ASSAULT GUN BAN

Two months from today, the federal assault weapons ban dissolves like a wisp of gun smoke. Even though he proudly carried the National Rifle Assn.'s seal of approval in 2000, President Bush says he supports renewing the 10-year-old ban, but he has refused to push Congress in that direction. His word to congressional leaders would matter greatly now, just as his continued silence suggests that he values the NRA's support over Americans' safety.

The NRA's strategy is to get its friends in Congress to run out the clock on the assault weapons ban. Toward that end, House leaders have blocked any vote on bills to extend the ban for another decade, and a Senate bill amended with renewal language died in March. Yet congressional leaders are pushing for votes on time-wasting wedge issues such as proposed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage and flag desecration.

The 1994 ban bars the manufacture and importation of 19 specific semiautomatic gun models and others with similar features. These aren't hunting weapons, unless you consider a classroom full of 7-year-olds or swing-shift workers at a factory to be prey.

The NRA loudly insists that the law is flawed because it bars some guns while allowing nearly identical weapons that have been cosmetically tweaked. That's absolutely correct. But when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who sponsored the 1994 ban, proposed a more inclusive ban, like California's, which defines assault guns by their generic characteristics, the NRA crushed it. It also killed her effort to close a loophole in the current law that allows importation of high-capacity bullet clips. If the federal law does expire, California's assault gun ban would stay in effect. But there would be no bar against Californians buying these weapons of mass destruction in Nevada or elsewhere.

Bush justifies the war in Iraq by insisting that it has made this nation safer. But the president and his congressional allies risk making American cities and towns far more dangerous by their shameful failure to renew the assault gun ban. They have just 61 days left.

[From the Washington Post, May 25, 2003]

WEAPONS FOR TERRORISM

Some of the most efficient firearms sought by terrorists-international as well as domestic-may flood the markets of this country if Congress fails to renew a federal ban on semiautomatic assault-style weapons. The ban is scheduled to expire next year after a decade in force; House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) announced at one point recently that the House would not even have a vote on the matter. But House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) then insisted that no final decision had been made, noting that he first wants to talk to President Bush, who has been on record as supporting the ban. That's the right position, but it will take more than presidential lip service to uphold it in an election year.

The 1994 law made it illegal to manufacture, transfer or possess 19 specific models of semiautomatic weapons. It also banned ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. If anything, the law needs to be strengthened. A Congressional Research Service report released last week found that U.S. gun laws in general can be easily exploited by terrorist operatives shopping for weapons in this country. In the case of assault weapons, the gun industry has found clever ways to make cosmetic design changes in their models to get around the federal ban. Even so, according to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, every major law enforcement organization in the country has supported the ban. These groups point out that these firearms remain the weapons of choice for drug traffickers, gangs and paramilitary groups. As weak as the ban may be, evidence exists that the number of assault weapons traced to crimes dips when such laws are in place. In Maryland, for example, a ban on assault pistols took effect in June 1994. The Brady Center found that the number of these guns recovered by Baltimore police in the first six months of 1995 was down 45 percent from the comparable period the year before.

The ban on assault weapons needs time and broadening to have more effect. Reopening the gates to still more assault weapons makes no sense in civilized society. Congress and the president ought not make it any easier for terrorists, deranged people, drive-by shooters or criminals-foreign or domestic-to kill and maim.