Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, let's remember what we are dealing with. We are dealing with the fact that current Federal law with respect to firearms background checks is dangerously limited and flawed because background checks are only required for sales by licensed gun dealers and that many, many people get a gun at a gun show or from someone else. Something like 20 percent, I think the figure is, or 25 percent of gun sales escape background checks. So all kinds of people who may be criminals, who may be mentally ill, and who may be domestic abusers who shouldn't have guns get guns, and that results in lives forfeited. It results in people killed. This bill goes a long way toward solving that by saying we are going to require background checks of everyone who gets a gun, with some exceptions, with some reasonable exceptions which are in the bill. Now, along comes this motion to recommit, which is a total red herring having nothing to do with the purpose of the bill, and says that, if someone fails a background check because he is illegally in this country, you should report that to ICE. First of all, if he fails a background check because he is illegally in the country, that means the system knows he is illegally in the country. It means they already know that. So what is the point of reporting him? He has to be in the system as illegally in the country in order to fail the background check because of section (g)(5). So we already know that, and this is totally circular, number one.…”