Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago, I stood on the east steps of this ornate building, and I now rise in the hall of this august body to call for action on an issue that has languished for far too long. Specifically, Congress needs to pass commonsense reform of our laws regarding firearms. I applaud our concerns for broader background checks, but broader background checks must be as effective as they are efficient. It is true that our current technology allows us to be efficient enough for background checks to be completed within 3 days, and over 90 percent of them are. But what happens to that less than 10 percent? And why aren't they completed within that timeframe? Well, Mr. Speaker, we do not have a perfect world. Our public servants are not perfect and the consuming public is not either. Public servants occasionally make mistakes, and some consumers intentionally make misrepresentations. No matter how good our technology is, sometimes the process requires more than 3 days to ferret out dishonest and ill-intended purchases. We need to close the gaping loopholes in our gun laws. We need to close the internet sale/gun show loophole that allows gun purchases to evade restrictions in place when purchasing a weapon through a licensed dealer. We need to close the loophole that allows individuals on the terrorist watch list to purchase firearms. We need to close the loophole that allows domestic abusers to purchase guns.…”