Larry Craig

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Machine guns: Fully automatic--the kind that is already banned. You can acquire them by permit from BATF to put in your collections, but you can't go to the street and buy them unless you buy them illegally and you buy them in the black market. You don't buy them at gun shows. That is the reality of what we are talking about. Where lies the burden of proof to renew or re-up a law that has restricted the ability of law-abiding citizens, created another tripwire, and denied them what is a legitimate ownership right in this country? Less than 2 percent. I believe those are fully verifiable statistics when we are examining this. That is why the House and many others have said, no, let's not go there. Let this law expire. It may have been necessary at the time largely for political purposes only. Many of us opposed it then, saying it wouldn't work and it wasn't necessary. It didn't work and it isn't necessary. That is the reality of what we are doing. Let us take this law from the books. Let us make sure we go after the criminal who misuses the gun--who uses a gun in the commission of a crime. That is where we get law enforcement. That is how we protect law-abiding citizens in this country and we don't thereby deny them their constitutional right. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains?

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we are within a short time of beginning three very critical votes today starting at 11:30 on three very important items. First, let me start with the underlying bill, S. 1805. The Statement of Administration Policy is to keep the bill clean. Don't add all of these other amendments to it. It is a clean, well-drafted, narrow provision that says we are going to exempt law-abiding gun manufacturers and dealers who play by the rules from third party suits of those who might take a law-abiding object and turn it into a criminal weapon; and that action should not be allowed to reach back through the court system and go after law-abiding gun manufacturers and licensed dealers. Product liability: Don't change that law. Standard tort law: Don't change that law. But we narrow and we define so that all of these new creative arguments that the trial bar is trying to bring up in the 30- plus lawsuits they have brought don't fit anymore. It is plain and simple. We go back to old tort in this country that says the individual is responsible for their actions. The individual is responsible for their actions. That is the underlying premise of S. 1805. Added to that, certainly the Senator from California will attempt to extend the assault weapon ban. A few moments ago I argued that there is no clear evidence, and the Justice Department's own statistics would argue that it really doesn't make a lot of sense. The Senator from Arizona talked about the gun show loophole and mentioned that it is now accessed by terrorists for their weapons of choice. He also didn't mention that all of those terrorists were arrested. Somehow the law worked. They were caught. They were illegal. They may have made the point of contact and they may have lied and they may have acquired a firearm which they could have acquired outside of a gun show, but they were caught. They were arrested. They were trafficking in guns. And darn it, that is illegal in this country. We have well established that. Do you create a whole new bureaucracy and a whole new hurdle over which the law-abiding citizen has to jump? I don't think so. I hope not. Or do you really create that gray area that I talked about earlier? What if I go to the gun show and see the gun I like, but it is a licensed dealer, it is a collector, and months later I have his card? I call him up and I say, I visited with you at the gun show. I have decided to buy your weapon, the firearm. I want to add it to my collection. I want to add it to my personal inventory. A legal action, it is today a legal action. If the gun show loophole bill passes, I think it is a phenomenally gray area. We set up another tripwire for the law-abiding citizen. The Senator from Arizona and I know how creative the trial bar is. Let's at least argue that they discussed it and that they avoided the background check at that time by buying it outside the gun show. The point of contact was the gun show. The point of contact for millions of Americans who legally buy firearms is the gun show, with 1,000 gun shows a year, millions of people attending them. So now we overlay that with the Federal bureaucracy. Yes, States do shape gun shows in their own likeness, and I don't object to that. Permits are required in some instances. Twelve States have done so. Have they plugged a loop hole? They have required that on all gun sales in their State, whether they are done inside of a gun show or outside of a gun show. Is that plugging a loophole or is that standardizing a law that fits that given State and the population of that State? That is 12 or 15, at the most. The rest have not. We had those kinds of requirements in the State of New York in 1911 and Congress did not speak to it. It was not called a loophole then. It was called a loophole only when the BATF, in their survey, said there might be a loophole through which some might be acquiring guns. One percent, 2 percent, 20 percent--how about 1.7 percent? It was true before the law; it is now true after the law. Did the law work? In the case of assault weapons, it did not work. We have denied it before, but what the Senator is going to say, let's plug the loophole in the gun shows and then later on let's reach outside the gun shows and do the same thing, by gosh, that is called gun control. When the right of a free citizen to engage with his neighbor, which they have exempted now, and they have trimmed it down a bit--and I don't argue that--that is a new Federal law over all of our citizens. I question the need and I question the responsible act. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I might ask the other side how they want to deal with their 1 minute remaining prior to my closing statement.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have been granted the time of the leader to close out this debate before we start votes at 11:35. I must tell you, I am honored by the presence of the Senator from Massachusetts today on the floor to debate this critical issue. I am honored we have lifted the gun debate, on a fundamentally important bill for the average American, to Presidential politics. So let's go to where the average American is, by a Zogby poll taken some months ago, and this is: The red States versus the blue States, the Bush States versus the Gore States, in 2000. When the average American, by the Zogby International polling group-- certainly no rightwing polling group--did their work with Southern Methodists, here is what they got. For the statement: ``There are enough laws on the books. What is needed is better law enforcement for current laws regarding gun control.''--69 percent in the Bush States agreed, 63 percent in the Gore States; for the military, the veterans, and the nonmilitary--all of them well above a majority of 50 percent. When it comes to the underlying bill, that number jumps into the 70s. Americans are fed up with the politics and the placebos to put a law on the books and somehow you have made the world safer. What they want is the cop on the beat arresting the bad guy or gal, and the courts not summarily putting them back on the streets. And when you use a gun in the commission of a crime, I suggest, and we suggest, and the American people suggest, you do the time. You don't plea-bargain them back to the streets out of a liberal court system. That is the reality. That is what is important about this underlying debate. I am proud we have elevated it to the stature it is today. I yield 5 minutes of my remaining time to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his debate and leadership on these issues. He has been a statewide law enforcement officer. He knows what laws are all about. He knows how the public reacts to them, and he knows that laws have to be enforced. We are minutes away from starting a very critical vote process on three amendments before we break for lunch. We will vote on the Feinstein, McCain, and Campbell amendments. There will be time allotted for each one as we get to them. In the minute that remains, I will say this has been a very positive debate. At the same time, I think there is a common sense and a reality that stacking up gun laws on the Federal books of the U.S. Code doesn't work, unless they are effectively enforced on the ground and the criminal element who may violate these laws knows there is a bite in the law; that somehow if they use a gun in the commission of a crime, they are going to do the time. Everywhere that principle has been applied, crime has gone down, the use of a gun by a criminal has gone down. There have been arguments about keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists. They have not made their case because every example they use was a terrorist who had been arrested, stopped. The guns, strangely, were to be exported out of the country by the terrorist. So they placed themselves in double jeopardy. Now they are doing the time. Somehow, in that portion of the law it worked well. But the vote we are going to take is over whether to extend the law for another period of time that Congress said some years ago they wanted to look at. Therefore, we would sunset it and reconsider it. That is what we are doing and will do by a vote on the extension of the assault weapons ban, the extension of a law that hasn't worked. All of the statistics are in. The numbers have not changed. Is the assault weapon, or a weapon of similar appearance, misused on occasion? Yes, it is, but by less than 2 percent in participating in a crime. Is that a justification for, again, establishing a tripwire? The Senator from Massachusetts said you are going to unleash AK-47s back on the streets. Well, the law that bans them is still in place. It doesn't fall out with the assault weapons ban going away. That and the Uzi law are in place. Senators will now come to the Chamber for a vote in a few moments on these critical issues. I hope they have been engaged. The debate has been very civil over a very important part of what we do in the Senate.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to let the assault weapons ban die in peace. It expires in September of 2004. Statistics show it has not changed the method of operation of criminals in this country. The assault weapons or the definition to which we prescribe in the law is not a weapon of choice of the criminal on the streets of America. It has simply set up the tripwires for law-abiding citizens who may choose to have this type of gun in their collection. By definition, that means that gun doesn't get misused. The stolen weapon, the one trafficked in the black market, is the one that is misused. That is why I believe--and many colleagues agree with me--when you sunset a law, you do so for the purpose of reexamining it to see whether it is worthy of staying on the books of this country. It is not. It is time for it to go away. I ask my colleagues to vote no on this amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. Following this is the debate on the gun show loophole. There are 2 minutes of debate and a 10-minute vote to follow. I wish my colleagues would cease conversation so they can hear the proponent of the amendment.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of my colleagues, another critical vote is at hand. To my colleagues, envision a door. If you walk through the door, the Federal Government takes over. If you stay outside the door, the current laws are in authority. It is called the gun show loophole. We have an amendment here that puts a whole new tripwire in front of the law-abiding citizen. It does not go after the criminal element. We know less than 2 percent of guns that are used in the commission of a crime are gotten through a gun show. Most of them are obtained in the back streets. Let's talk about law enforcement and the argument about terrorists gaining their guns through gun shows. The reason they arrested the terrorists is the current laws work. There are 1,000 gun shows for law- abiding citizens. Let's not create a Federal bureaucracy that will begin to govern and control what is the right of free commerce in this country. Let the current Federal law work.

Mr. CRAIG. I move to reconsider the vote. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2623

Mr. CRAIG. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we will now adjourn for lunch. When we return at 2:15, we will have under consideration the Frist-Craig amendment on armor piercing, the Kennedy amendment on the armor- piercing gun ban, and a Levin amendment to be tabled, and final passage. We will reconvene at 2:15.

Mr. CRAIG

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the Fraternal Order of Police, 311,000 police, oppose what the Senator from Massachusetts has just said. Their official organization says this is nothing more than a smokescreen to ban about 30 percent of ammunition that is currently in the market for the purpose of hunting, for the purpose of using in it a law-abiding way by sportsmen. Can a piece of ammunition, shot in a 30.06, that will kill a deer or an elk pierce certain types of armor? The answer is, yes, it can. The Senator from Massachusetts is truthful in that. But do we want to now summarily erase all of that from the market or do we want to do an official bona fide ballistic study, directed by the Department of Justice, to have a clear and clean understanding of what is, in fact, armor piercing and what is, in fact, a legitimate piece of ammunition that is used by marksmen, that is used by sportsmen, that is used in the legitimate business of hunting that we have longtime said is a great tradition in this country? Anti-gunners have always said, if you can't get the gun, go after the ammo--if you can't get the gun, go after the ammo. Clearly, the underlying amendment that we will debate next goes after the ammo. The Frist-Craig amendment says, whoa, wait a minute, let's make darn sure what we are doing is the right thing before we go there. No one is in favor of a cop-killer bullet. Shame on anybody who would accuse any Senator on this floor for being in favor of a cop-killer bullet. What we are in favor of is legitimate ammunition and its use, not its misuse, and not the ability to say, well, that is a good bullet but it was used badly; therefore, it ought to be eliminated.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I believe the Kennedy amendment is now up. Both the Senator from Massachusetts and I agree, this being his amendment, he should be able to close the debate. Let me suggest as clearly as I can to all of our colleagues, if you just voted yes on the immediate past amendment that passed by a very large margin, 85 to 12, then you would vote no on Kennedy. It is quite simple why. He sets a new ballistic standard. He does not allow the professional to determine what is or is not armor piercing. I don't believe a Senator wants to ban from the marketplace potentially 30 percent of the kind of ammunition that is now used in legitimate hunting. That is fundamentally the issue that is at hand, to reach out into the marketplace and arbitrarily draw a line when we all know that hunting weapons, when misdirected, have the potential of penetrating soft armor and other types of armor. Are they armor piercing? No. But they have the capability of phenomenal penetration. That is why they are hunting ammunition. That is why our sportsmen use them. It is not the role of the Senate to draw that kind of line and determine what is hunting and what is not in respect to this amendment. I believe that is the underlying basis of the Kennedy amendment. I ask that the Senate oppose it and vote no. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. CRAIG. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, if I could have the attention of our colleagues, this is a key amendment to the underlying S. 1805. I yield to the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to table the Levin amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CRAIG. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I believe the order at hand is final passage on S. 1805, as amended. I turn to my colleague, Senator Reed, for any closing comments he would like to make.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, we are about to vote on S. 1805, as amended. The House passed a clean S. 1805 with over a 2-to-1 margin. The President has asked for a clean bill. But in the process of the last 5 days we have added a great deal to this bill that makes it much less than clean. We have added back the assault weapons ban. We have added trigger locks. We put a new tripwire in gun shows that will allow law-abiding citizens to be at risk. I don't think we can go there, nor do I believe we should go there. I, and certainly my colleagues, have worked in good will, as have all who have come to the floor to debate this issue. There has been a real difference of opinion. I am now told even if we passed it, it would never get to conference. If you can't work the process and get to conference, how can you complete the legislative process for which the House and the Senate have always historically been known? To simply have someone say no to allow the difference between the House and the Senate to be worked out is the very clear message I am hearing at this moment. That is a message that doesn't work. If that is the strategy here, that we move legislation by offering amendments by working in a bipartisan fashion only to say no at the end, how can we accept the process and simply say, well, let us vote it out, anyway? This is a very important bill. There is no question about that. It was a substantial move in tort reform. It enshrined once again the historic tort belief that you as an individual are responsible for your own actions. If somebody acts criminally down the line and you have been law abiding and you are at risk, that is what the bill said. It wasn't convoluted. It was clear and it was clean. I worked on it a long while, as have many others. I am proud of our work product, and I would love to see this bill pass. But I now believe it is so dramatically wounded that it should not pass. I urge my colleagues to vote against it. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.