Duncan Hunter

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me just take the last 30 seconds simply to say this. This is the most basic and simple and, I think, moderate of amendments. And if drug dealers in this town are not given any time, then I think the D.C. Council should be taken to task by the gentlewoman who just talked. But this gives law-abiding citizens the right to have a registered handgun complying with all registration laws in their home for the protection of their loved ones. All our statistics show that armed citizens do deter crimes. They do it 2 million times a year throughout this Nation. Let us give D.C. residents that right.

Mr. HUNTER. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Chairman, I am informed that we have a number of Members who are on very, very tight schedules. I myself have an amendment I would like to talk on longer, but I am not going to ask for extra time. Regretfully, I object.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, if I have the right to close, I will defer to the other side.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) for this long- needed legislation. It is interesting to me to watch two of my friends, the gentlemen from Hollywood, California (Mr. Waxman) and (Mr. Berman), who have long been real champions of labeling cigarettes with those warning labels, those hazardous-to-your-health labels, and I am sure they think that is a very good idea.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, and just to respond to my friend, there is no constitutional problem with having a label on the movie Natural Born Killers which says to parents, ``This product contains graphic and intense depictions of violence in the context of criminal activity. This product is inappropriate for consumption by minors under 17 years of age.'' In fact, that is an exercise of free speech, that is not an inhibition of free speech. Mr. Chairman, parents are raising their children in a very dangerous world today with respect to the media and Hollywood and the entertainment industry. In the old days, Roy Rogers, when he was the biggest star in the world for children, never did anything to frustrate parents with respect to their goals of raising children who are honest, who are wholesome, and who have values. They did not have to explain why Roy Rogers did something that was horrible or unusual and that they should not follow. I was looking at this billboard for Natural Born Killers. This stars people, Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey, Jr., and Tommy Lee Jones, who millions of children throughout the world say, I really like her, or I really like him, and they have developed an affection and an admiration for those people. They have not learned to disassociate what those people do on the screen with the person themselves. What this does for parents, for parents who are so busy today, often having several jobs, very often the mother and the father both working, many times raising children in single families, this gives them some information. This is supposed to be the information age. This tells them that something is graphic violence or graphic sex, and it allows that mom who is walking out the door whose child is going to go with another child somewhere to watch a movie, it enables them to make a decision and say either you can go or you cannot go. This Wamp-Stupak legislation empowers parents, and the one thing that we have been afraid to do, apparently because of the enormous pressure and the enormous power of Hollywood, is empower parents. That is what we must do, and if this legislation passes, it will accrue to the benefit of every family in America.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for yielding me this time, and I want to salute him as one of the giants in this body and a Member who has distinguished himself by seeing things many times much more clearly than the rest of us. Let me just say to all of my colleagues who have talked about those who would be inconvenienced by this legislation. Legislation does tend to inconvenience people. And in determining that we are going to pass legislation and inconvenience some people so that we might do a service for others, we establish a priority list. I have heard on the other side of this argument an interesting priority list. It seems to be the same time after time. First, we have to worry about the vendor at the 7-Eleven. That is a person we really have to be concerned about. Of course, we do not worry about that vendor when we establish criminal sanctions for selling cigarettes to minors because it might damage their lungs, but we should really worry about that vendor if we are selling stuff that might damage their minds and damage their souls. In that case the vendor has to be the number one person on our priority list to be concerned about. Secondly, of course, the recording artist. We have to be very concerned about them. We have to be very concerned about the distributors. And I presume we should be very concerned about those who write the PAC checks. Finally, at the bottom of our concern list, our priority list, are the children and maybe a little bit below them the family. I understand that this is complex legislation. All of those of us who have tried cases involving freedom of speech understand that. But we can work our way through this. This is excellent legislation. It goes to the heart of the problem that is hurting America right now. Let us pass the Hyde amendment.

Mr. HUNTER

Mr. HUNTER. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time set aside for the opposition.

Mr. HUNTER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Further reserving the right to object, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Mr. HUNTER. I thank my friend for yielding. I just wanted to note to my friend that we had one speaker who did not have an opportunity to speak because of the oversight of this side, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), and I would ask the gentleman's indulgence to yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HUNTER. Further reserving my right to object, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, further reserving my right to object, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the remaining time to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman).

Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just wanted to say, to get my oar in the water here, that this amendment does do what several people thought the base bill does, that is, this amendment would in my understanding immediately stop all operations in Kosovo. That is, it would paralyze air operations, no moneys of any stripe, whether it is this year or supplemental money or money for next year would be available. That means that everything would stop. Let me just say from my perspective the same thing that I said several weeks ago on this, that I think that would be a major mistake. This, regardless of how we got here, we are operating this air war, bringing it to a conclusion, and I intend and I think a number of other Members intend on this side to oppose this amendment as much as we respect our friend from Indiana.

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. First, I want to address my friend from Washington (Mr. Dicks). When the President asked for $6 billion within a supplemental for this operation, I wanted to give him $28.7 billion. We ended up, on this side of the aisle, giving the people in uniform, the people who count, $12 billion. We came up with twice as much for combat operations and for military accounts, for ammunition, for spare parts, for equipment than the President wanted. In fact, he complained he had too much. The gentleman knows what the problem is here. The problem is in the fiscal year 2000 budget the President did not come up with a doggone cent for this operation. Everything that we have got in that $280-some billion budget is designated for certain things, like ammunition, where we are extremely low. We are $13 billion low on ammunition; spare parts. We crashed 55 aircraft last year in peacetime operations. We have got 10,000 troops on food stamps. We are 18,000 sailors short in the Navy. The gentleman knows, as my good friend who works these issues with me, that we have a lot of deficiencies. And yet when the President came up with the budget, he did not put a dime toward Yugoslav operations. Now, what does that mean? It means he is going to reach into the cash register and he is going to take money out that was going to go for M- 16 bullets; it means he is going to reach into the cash register and take money out that would have gone for cruise missiles. Now, I have voted with the gentleman on every single one of the amendments that have come up with respect to supporting the air war. We have, on this side of the aisle, when it really counted, we have given the men and women in uniform twice what the President wanted in terms of money. All we want is the assurance that the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), I believe now has received from the President, where the President called up and said, Okay, I am going to come with a supplemental appropriation, I will not take money out of readiness accounts. And the gentleman knows as well as I do that we will have disserved the men and women in uniform if we force them to continue to fly in unsafe aircraft. In many cases we have aircraft that are much older than they should, be; if we continue to make them go into conflict with inadequate munitions and all the other things, we are worried about the next war. So I would just agree with the gentleman that we need to spend money on supporting the troops. We want to make sure money is spent on supporting the troops.

Mr. HUNTER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. HUNTER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, let me make one statement, and then I will yield to my friend. I think the gentleman from Missouri would agree with me that we will have done a great service for the men and women in uniform if in fact the President says, Okay, on top of this year's appropriation and authorization for maintaining the military, I will come with extra money for the Yugoslav operation, for the peacekeeping operations, so we will not be dipping into ammunition accounts to fund that. Would the gentleman agree with me?

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for the clarification, and I hope he will work with me and other members on both sides who are concerned about getting our ammunition stocks back to where they need to be. I know the gentleman knows they are very low right now.