Charles E. Schumer: “the debate on the crime bill begins tomorrow in this House, but the national debate has already begun, and unfortunately…”

“the debate on the crime bill begins tomorrow in this House, but the national debate has already begun, and unfortunately the National Rifle Association is at it again. The NRA is sinking to the cheap shot, the smear, the big lie. I am specifically talking about this ad sponsored by the National Rifle Association. The purposes of this full-page NRA ad, $70,000, are clear. The NRA wants to frighten the American people with the lies in this ad. The NRA wants to bully the Members of Congress with lies. Let us be clear, the NRA ad is not about the crime bill. They have not spoken to me, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, once on this issue. The truth is that our crime bill already contains an unprecedented array of tough punishment measures. Our crime bill hits violent criminals with a ton of bricks, but our crime bill is also smart, which NRA is definitely not. Our crime bill cuts violent crime off at the roots. It protects America's children from drugs and guns and violent crime. It gives them hope. The NRA ad is really not about gun control. It is about the ban on deadly military style assault weapons that we are going to be considering in the weeks to come. It is about a comprehensive attack on gun runners who sell thousands of guns to criminals, the subject of a bill I am introducing next week. Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues that if they want to stop violent crime it should not be this ad they heed.”