"We have reached a tipping point. We need to act."
"This is not some abstract, legal debate. Guns have forever changed the lives of so many people."
"Thank you for joining us at this Committee hearing, as well as my other colleagues who will be here."
"We also need to protect your right to life, to peace, to freedom from violence from those same firearms."
"The Department strongly supports a stand-alone straw purchasing statute."
"This hearing of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will come to order."
"He is elevating the Second Amendment above all of the other values."
"democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself"
"We should not design or conduct undercover operations which include guns crossing the border."
"So we need to do more to keep guns out of the wrong hands in the first place."
"History has never been the sole determinant of the meaning of any constitutional provision."