Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a document titled ``Just the FACTS'' at the conclusion of my remarks. Mr. President, the problem of gun violence is real, but too many of the proposed responses to this problem would not only represent unwise policy but would also violate a fundamental constitutional right--the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. What does this mean to you and to me as Americans? It means that the right to bear arms falls into the same category as our other most closely held individual rights: the right of free speech, the right of freedom of religion, and the right of due process of law. Basically, what I am saying is that one cannot separate out any one of the Bill of Rights or any of the other constitutional rights that come under the 14th Amendment, as an example. You can't separate the right to bear arms from those because, and this is not emphasized enough, the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, is an individual, fundamental constitutional right. Maybe a lot of us believed that over decades, but it has been only within the last 5 to 8 years and in a couple of decisions that the Supreme Court has made that entirely clear, that it is an individual, fundamental constitutional right. With that firm foundation, I want to straighten out some of the rampant misinformation that is used to advocate for stricter gun control.…”