Charles Rangel: “I would have to agree that the gentleman from Florida is clever, and I do hope we can use his ingenuity as relates to…”

“I would have to agree that the gentleman from Florida is clever, and I do hope we can use his ingenuity as relates to the interstate sale of guns. Because, clearly, we ought to have as much concern about these dangerous weapons as we do about our children consuming wine. Now, in the old days, when I was a kid, kids did not wait 2, 3, 4 days in order to get wine. They used to get outside the liquor store and get someone to go there and buy wine for them. So if they are clever enough to use the Internet to do it, I do not really think that this law is going to catch too many of them. It seems to me, coming from a State that has wineries, that we have a major problem here, and that is whether or not some of my Republican friends want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to be able to have as much competition in this great Republic of ours that we can. I do not think it can be challenged that we have some 1700 small wineries that are unable to penetrate the larger distributors that we have in this country. They have fine products, but they do not have the money and the know-how to get it into the stores. Finally, technology has given them the opportunity to break through these barriers and to be able to sell their products, subject to State law.”