Byron Dorgan: “I understand this legislation deals with America's schools, with learning, with students, and with our education system.…”

“I understand this legislation deals with America's schools, with learning, with students, and with our education system. It is hard to talk about learning and education unless, and until, we have a safe environment for students in our school systems. Let me just show you the headline from a Washington Post article from, January 27 of this year: ``School Shootings Break Out in the District of Columbia''--school shootings; not just shootings, school shootings. I recently visited schools here in the District of Columbia. It is probably not surprising to anybody anymore; but a decade ago we would have been shocked if we saw what I did when walking through the front door of the school. I did not see books or a smiling teacher with an apple. I saw a metal detector. Why do we need metal detectors at the front doors of our schools? Because all too often, we are finding that weapons are coming into our schools. Shootings are breaking out in the classrooms and in hallways of America's schools. I offer an amendment along with my colleague from North Dakota [Mr. Conrad] called the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994.”