Herb Kohl: “today's Washington Post tells the story of young children being shot in their own neighborhoods by feuding gangs who are…”

“today's Washington Post tells the story of young children being shot in their own neighborhoods by feuding gangs who are targetting innocent bystanders. It tells us eloquently why we must do all that we can to keep guns out of the hands of children. And the most insidious form of juvenile violence is violence in our schoolyards. We must take this opportunity to do what we can to keep our school zones from becoming war zones. So I would like to offer the Gun Free School Zones Act as an amendment. The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1995 is a commonsense, bipartisan, constitutional approach to combating violence in our schools. It bars bringing a gun within 1,000 feet of a school, with a few commonsense exceptions. It modifies the Supreme Court's 1995 Lopez decision to ensure the law's constitutionality. So, let me make a few points. First, we need a Federal law. The Federal Government has a crucial role to play in dealing with the gun traffic that leads right into our classrooms. After all, how can we turn our backs on a national problem that we can help solve? The problem is national is scope. Anyone who thinks that this is a local problem isn't looking at the evidence. Interstate commerce is exactly what is causing the problem. Sometimes these guns get into children's hands through the efforts of nationwide gangs.”