Angie Craig: “I think that is appropriate. I am not going to disagree with the Senator from New York on that proviso, because what is…”

“I think that is appropriate. I am not going to disagree with the Senator from New York on that proviso, because what is in the law today was done by the Clinton administration and not a mandate of the Congress itself. President Clinton and Secretary Cuomo did that by regulatory change. So there is flexibility. What is true in the law, which we are dealing with in this Chamber, is the option. The Schumer amendment would mandate a specific amount of money to be used for that purpose. Let me quote an article I found most fascinating from the New York Daily News Online, July 28, 2000: A gun buyback program to get illegal weapons off the streets had to be altered yesterday after a stampede of court officers [that is, law enforcement officers] tried to cash in. Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes ordered changes in the initiative when he found out that court officers--some of them in uniform--were handing in their old .38 caliber service revolvers. Because the program had pulled in only about 200 guns since the one-month window began on July 1, Hynes upped the reward on Monday from $100 to $250 per gun. In other words, it was not working, a point that has been driven home numerous times. The Senator from New York says: It feels good. So let us dump $15 million because it feels good, while we all know it is a whale of a photo-op.…”