Political Quotes

“today I am to introducing the American Handgun Standards Act, a bill to require that handguns made in the United States meet the same quality and safety standards currently required of imported handguns. I am joined in this effort by Senators John Chafee, Jack Reed, and Dick Durbin. This bill is aimed at junk guns--the cheap, unsafe, and easily concealable handguns that are the criminals' clear favorite. Under our bill, junk guns will no longer be allowed to be manufactured or sold in the United States of America. Nearly 30 years ago, Congress thought it had solved the problem of junk guns. Following the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968, which banned the importation of junk guns. At the time, virtually all junk guns were imported, so restricting their domestic manufacture was not considered necessary. To implement the new law, a quality and safety test was designed to measure a gun's suitability for import. Any foreign-made firearm that fails this test is, by definition, a junk gun, and it cannot be imported into the United States. This bill would require that all handguns made in the United States pass this common sense quality and safety test. The Gun Control Act of 1968 created a junk gun double standard. Imported handguns were subjected to rigorous quality and safety standards, but guns made in the United States were left totally unregulated.”