Dick Durbin: “Good. I hope the next thing we can agree on is that we want to make certain that our veterans are treated fairly, that…”

“Good. I hope the next thing we can agree on is that we want to make certain that our veterans are treated fairly, that they are given every consideration for having served our country, but we do not want to put them in harm's way either by way of suicide or by committing a crime with a gun, and we want to have a process that respects that goal. I hope my colleague and friend from Iowa would agree with that. The problem we have is the Senator from Iowa is amending an appropriations bill. The difficulty you face when you amend appropriations bills, in most instances, if you are not authorizing and strictly sticking within the four corners of an appropriations bill, you can cut off funds--no funds shall be spent for--and that is what the amendment of the Senator from Iowa does. No funds shall be spent at the Veterans' Administration for--and he just described the process. Here is the difficulty. This amendment as written doesn't solve the problem; it creates a bigger problem. I will concede at the outset to the Senator from Iowa that we should be sitting down and resolving a very serious issue between the definition of ``mental defect'' and ``mental competency'' between the NICS law and the VA. There is plenty of room for us to sit down and come up with a reasonable way to deal with the situation.…”