Fred Heineman: “I stand in opposition to the Barr amendment. There are great sections of this terrorism bill, effective death penalty…”

“I stand in opposition to the Barr amendment. There are great sections of this terrorism bill, effective death penalty reform, victims restitution, criminal alien deportation, that are great. That is fighting crime. But what does it do substantively for the cops? This is not a cops bill. What the gentleman's amendment does is it guts the bill. As stated in section 112 of the overall bill, 112 states that the National Institute of Justice shall test every single commercial bullet in this country against every single piece of protective armor that the policemen carry, that they can buy commercially. Have you ever ridden downtown at midnight? Were you ever scared? Cops handle 911 calls. They cannot turn them down. They have to go to a 911 call. When people are running out of banks, the cops have to run into banks, and they have to feel secure that their protective armor is good and contains integrity. I say that we need to deal with the cops. This is not a cops bill. We need to retain section 112, which is a cops bill. I say let us leave politics out of this.”