Robert C. Byrd

We have turned the right to own and keep firearms, a right which I steadfastly and earnestly support, on its head when we insist on the rights of criminals to have assault weapons.

Surely, the NRA does not have to protect criminals in order to protect decent, law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves and their families.

It is time to actually fight crime on our Nation's street corners, not just talk about it. The time for talking has expired. The time for action has arrived.

This is no longer a Senate in which men exercise absolute independence. We cannot truly say that we know no masters. We cannot truly say that we acknowledge no dictators.

Senators and Members of the House of Representatives do not have complete freedom of the will, because we have enslaved ourselves, we have enslaved our freedom, we have enslaved our consciences by having to run around the country and raise…

At a time when other countries on the globe are following our example and struggling to adopt a form of government that is similar to our own, let us take steps to protect representative democracy from deteriorating from within.

What is so sacrosanct, what is so untouchable about the foreign operations budget that we want to fence it off, not to touch it? Mr. President, the time has come to limit that foreign aid budget and give it the same scrutiny we give all…

We do not even have to go outside the beltway to see the poverty and the homelessness. Charity begins at home, and it is time that we all remember that.

I believe in the Constitution. I believe that the people would rue the day that the line-item veto was ever written into law or into that Constitution.

My constituents, my American constituents, come before the constituents of the world.

I am not sent here by the Panamanian citizens. I am sent here by American citizens in West Virginia. They live and they breathe; they bleed and they suffer, and they die.

What does America stand for if we do not stand for freedom in Lithuania? What does America stand for if we do not stand for freedom in Estonia? And what does America stand for if we do not stand for freedom in Latvia and are willing to say…

We simply need to speak out and let the world know what our conscience is. After all, the world looks to America for leadership and we ought to demonstrate that we are capable of it and worthy of it.

Why, then, have we lost the will to speak out plainly, clearly and unequivocally in the case of the Baltic republics? These people deserve our support. They have pleaded for international recognition, and we ought to make our position…

Suddenly, it is not convenient for us to continue to support the cause of freedom for the captive nations. Have we decided that the freely elected governments of Lithuania and the other Baltic nations must meet some higher test before they…

I will never, as long as I am in this Senate, turn down a plea from another State or another region that is faced with a catastrophe or disaster, whether it be God-made or manmade.

The captivity of Lithuanians, of Latvians, and of Estonians should end as soon as the necessary arrangements can be effected, and it should end soon.

Should there ever be a time when it is inconvenient, or embarrassing, or offensive for a people to declare their sovereignty, a sovereignty that was stolen from them and that they want back?

I say, let us keep our eyes on what we are doing here, and let us not adopt through passion what reason would reject.

Mr. President, it would offend me if someone were to charge that my grandfather was a horse thief. And it will offend today's generation of Turks for their forebears to be labeled as criminals.

America needs seriously to reconsider its attitude and approach to addressing the education of our country's young people. We not only need a minimally competent work force that can read, write, and compute basic math and science…

We need to help Eastern Europe, but America should not have to do it alone.

Europe is asking us to be a general partner in the future of its continent, and we ought to accept the invitation.

Mr. President, the purpose of this legislation should not be to decide who are the winners and who are the losers. We are not here out of some arrogant sense of self-righteousness to reward one region of the country while we punish…

Let us respond to our environmental needs as we responded to the San Francisco earthquake and Hurricane Hugo disasters-as one Nation pulling together to solve problems.