They represent, in my view, a great opportunity for America to give these idealistic, energetic, committed individuals a chance to make this a better Nation.

There is a genuine, good-faith effort underway, a bipartisan effort among Senators, and I am part of a group, four Democrats and four Republicans.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) is necessarily absent.

What are the standards that are applied in those circumstances?

I also want to thank Senator Pat Leahy, Chairman of the full Committee, for giving this opportunity to us to have this hearing today.

All of these proposals are based on common sense; all of them have strong support among the American public.

I have joined with Chairman Leahy in cosponsoring legislation relating to straw purchasers.

We cannot deal with this in isolation community by community.

It strikes me that what Heller said is the absolute prohibition of gun ownership is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

Straw purchasing is a dangerous act that supplies many criminals in the city of Chicago and across the United States.

There are burning fires of violence in that community, and we have to pool our resources and work collaboratively.

We also need to protect your right to life, to peace, to freedom from violence from those same firearms.

It would make even less sense to be bound solely by history.

democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself

This is not some abstract, legal debate. Guns have forever changed the lives of so many people.

We should not design or conduct undercover operations which include guns crossing the border.

The Department strongly supports a stand-alone straw purchasing statute.

We have reached a tipping point. We need to act.

Some say we should just enforce the laws that are on the books, but that is not enough.

So we need to do more to keep guns out of the wrong hands in the first place.

Just outside Chicago in a suburb is one gun store that we can hold responsible for 20 percent of the crime guns that we confiscate in the city of Chicago.

He is elevating the Second Amendment above all of the other values.

This hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will come to order.

I value and respect the rights that are provided by our Constitution. However, I find it very hard to believe that our founders intended those rights to go so unreasonably unchecked.

I think it is fairly obvious and rational to believe some of these gang bangers are never going to walk into a gun dealer.