Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator for his lifelong leadership on this question. I feel as though I am in a caucus of giants here, where people are coming down to the floor--from Senator Durbin to Senator Schumer, to Senator Blumenthal--who have all been working on this issue about firearms, trying to protect Americans from gun violence far longer than I have. Of course, as one of the original authors of the bill, Senator Schumer knows better than anyone that had you known that you were building a bill that would only cover 60 percent of gun sales, you never would have designed it, nor probably voted for it, with the terms that exist today. What has happened is that over time gun sales have migrated to other places. What we are simply trying to do is to reinforce the existing intention of the law. We are not trying to change the law at all. For everybody who voted for that bill originally to make sure criminals were not able to buy guns, they did so because they believed they were going to cover the majority of sales that were done in a commercial atmosphere. Now commerce happens in gun shows and online, and we need for the system to migrate to it. The Senator is also right that protecting America from terrorist attacks is ineffective unless we do both--make sure people on the terrorist watch list can't buy guns and that the forums which that list reaches are both gun stores and gun shows but also Internet sales.…”