Tom Feeney: “What the bill does is say, before you are treated as a criminal, you need to be tried as a criminal in a criminal court…”

“What the bill does is say, before you are treated as a criminal, you need to be tried as a criminal in a criminal court, and you need to be convicted as a criminal. That is the American way. What the amendment says is that you can be treated as a criminal even though you have never been tried as a criminal, and even though you have never been in a criminal court and certainly never been convicted. Members will recall that the Bill of Rights, aside from protecting the right to bear firearms, also protects certain rights before one is convicted of a crime. It is the great American criminal jurisprudence. Among other things, before you are a criminal, you have the right to a trial, you have the right to face your accusers, you have a right to call witnesses, you have a right to an attorney, you have a right to due process, and you have a right to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. What the gentleman's amendment does is to essentially eviscerate all of the protections we give people in America who are accused of a crime and make them criminals even though they have never had a day to protect themselves in a criminal court.”