Chuck Schumer: “If nothing happens, AK-47s, Uzis, and TEC-9s are going to be back on the streets next week. That is a giant step…”

“If nothing happens, AK-47s, Uzis, and TEC-9s are going to be back on the streets next week. That is a giant step backward. It is hard to believe that with all the progress we have made in the fight on crime, with the reduction in crime, with the reduction in the number in law enforcement who are hurt and killed in the line of duty, with the new war on terrorism upon us, that we are going to make it easy for anybody to get an AK-47, provided they have not been convicted of a felony. Someone on a terrorist watch list will be able to walk into a store and get an AK-47. What is going on in America? This should not be a contest. This bill should have been renewed without a debate. Everyone who studied it has agreed it has been broadly successful. This President and the previous four, from Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford to Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, are on record as being for this, and because of a small band of people who are ideologues, who are extreme, we are not going to see this happen. This represents the dysfunction of American politics.”