Political Quotes

“this debate has sure aroused the attention of this country, and it needs to. Recently we debated and voted on a tough crime bill, but I rise today to encourage my colleagues to oppose this bill. I am one of those that were in the undecided category. During the long debate over the Brady bill, which I supported, along with other colleagues, I received assurances that our States would be exempted from the Brady bill. Tennessee already had an even stricter 15-day waiting period which had successfully been in place for over 10 years. To our surprise, on March 1 of this year, the long arm of the law, in the case the ATF, enforced the Brady law in Tennessee and other States, regardless of the fact that our current laws were even stricter. Now Tennesseans have to fill out both a Federal form and a State form that only causes bureaucratic delay and confusion. I wonder why we did not get a cooling-off period? The ATF now has asked us to trust that this is only a ban on 19 weapons, only a ban on military-style weapons, only a ban on guns that are not used for sporting purposes, only a ban on magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds. Why, they even go as far as specifically protecting 650 guns by name, but only as long as they do not look like assault weapons. Mr. Chairman, I am here today to say that I am of the opinion that this will only be the beginning of a long list of semiautomatic weapons that will be banned.”