Today the Senate passed a strong bipartisan bill to reauthorize and strengthen the Violence Against Women Act.

It is the policy of the United States to strengthen the security and resilience of its critical infrastructure against both physical and cyber threats.

An effective national effort to strengthen critical infrastructure security and resilience must be guided by a national plan that identifies roles and responsibilities.

The state of our Union is stronger.

Proactive and coordinated efforts are necessary for us to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure.

Stronger families. Stronger communities. A stronger America.

Let's get it done.

It would make even less sense to be bound solely by history.

Straw purchasing is a dangerous act that supplies many criminals in the city of Chicago and across the United States.

It strikes me that what Heller said is the absolute prohibition of gun ownership is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself

I value and respect the rights that are provided by our Constitution. However, I find it very hard to believe that our founders intended those rights to go so unreasonably unchecked.

He is elevating the Second Amendment above all of the other values.

This hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will come to order.

The Department strongly supports a stand-alone straw purchasing statute.

We also need to protect your right to life, to peace, to freedom from violence from those same firearms.

Thank you for joining us at this Committee hearing, as well as my other colleagues who will be here.

This is not some abstract, legal debate. Guns have forever changed the lives of so many people.