Henry Hyde

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I am sorry, but I do not agree. I think we have to protect the little innocent life.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I just want to remind my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell), of the doctrine of transferred intent, which I am sure, as a law professor, he is very familiar with. For example, if an individual is driving the get-away car in a bank robbery and, meanwhile, unbeknownst to that driver, a murder occurs and the guard is killed, the driver of the get-away car is guilty, even though he did not know. Now, if someone assaults a woman and injures her and she is pregnant, that person intended the crime and they must intend the consequences. I feel very awkward lecturing a professor. I have one more thing to say. If an individual does not know when life begins, but they want to kill it, where do we give the benefit of the doubt?

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I just want to agree with the gentleman. There is no logic or consistency for tolerating abortion as a result of rape or incest. The little victim has committed no wrong or no crime. The gentleman is absolutely right, and it saddens me that that is in our law. Unfortunately, it recognizes the political reality, and we are saving some children, if not all that we should save.

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

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) for bringing this bill forward. It is much needed and fills a gap in our criminal law, and to those who lament the fact that Roe versus Wade might be somehow or other impacted or questioned, I can only say because an issue is difficult and creates heartburn on all sides is no reason we should not address it because Roe versus Wade, which in my opinion ranks right up there with Dred Scott as an outrageous decision in our Supreme Court's history deserves to be discussed and not surrendered to. There are two aspects to this debate. The first one is the concept of punishing somebody for damaging or killing a fetus. That is about as clinical a term as we can get, fetus. There are others, embryo, blastocyst, zygote. My favorite is ``products of conception.'' Anything to dehumanize that little baby. That little child, needing time and nourishment to be a little boy, a little girl, time and nourishment to be an old man or an old woman, that little child with immense potential, that little child in the woman growing, is rendered a nullity, a cipher, a zero. The gentlewoman from California repeatedly repeats how she does not agree with violence against women. I do not know anybody who does. But what about the unborn? Why is that forgotten in your calculus? What about when the obstetrician treats a pregnant woman, the fact that he treats two patients? What about the fact that the little unborn can have a different gender than the mother, can have a different blood type than the mother? The little unborn is a separate and distinct patient, and the obstetrician treats both of them. So the dehumanizing, the desensitizing, the depersonalizing of this little entity known as the unborn is an essential aspect of the other side's argument, because otherwise they have to confront the fact that abortion kills a tiny member of the human family. Now, nobody, no decent person would kill another person, except in self-defense or for some other legitimate reason. So then when you support abortion you have to have recourse to some semantic gymnastics. You have to define the little victim as less than human, subhuman, expendable. You cannot throw away a human being, but you can throw away a fetus, if you define it as utterly without value or possessing secondary value to the woman. So this dilemma the pro-choicers are in is well known. They cannot admit any humanity to the unborn. But that is clinically primitive. The unborn is there. It has a little heartbeat, it has brain waves, it is a member of the human family, and to deny that, in my opinion, is self- deception, terribly serious self-deception. So this bill recognizes that when a pregnant woman is assaulted, it is a more serious condition than when a woman who is not pregnant is assaulted, considering the same force used in the assault. That second little victim deserves recognition. You obliterate the second little victim. You will not give credit for the membership in the human family, and that is sad. I know why you do it, because otherwise you are confronted with the fact that you are aborting a human being, and that just cannot be. So define them out of existence, that is what you do. So I am pleased and proud that this bill has been offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Graham). Logically to reject this bill or accept the gentlewoman's substitute is to deny the truth and the facts, the reality, that that little child in the womb is a member of the human family and ought to be loved and nourished and cherished and recognized, not obliterated and rendered a zero. Why is it the party of compassion, why is it Members who pride themselves on caring for the little guy, the one that is left out, have no room in their moral imagination for the unborn?

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

Mr. HYDE

Mr. HYDE. With pleasure I yield to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say in response to the remarks of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren) that I certainly share her zeal for banning the large clips, cartridge clips. It was her motion and mine that passed on the floor; but, unfortunately, the bill to which it was attached was not passed. But it is a part of what we are talking about, and I do not think that is in serious dispute. I just would like to remind the folks on the other side, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren) that this overriding part of this is juvenile justice, the H.R. 1501, juvenile justice reform. We have been working on that 4\1/2\ years. It is that difficult. It has that much emotion involved, that much philosophy, that much concern. So to expect us to stampede to a resolution now is just ill-advised. In good faith, we are doing our best. We are going to succeed, in my opinion. I have talked to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) at some length twice today. I met with him once. We are closer than ever. Please do not push us off the cliff with partisanship. I know how easy it is. I know how strongly my colleagues feel, how passionately they feel. I share that passion. But compromises are difficult. One does not get everything one wants. One has to make concessions. But those concessions have to be prudent. We understand that. That is true of both sides. I can only say my colleagues can continue to berate us, and I know they put a soft face on it, but they are. There is a predicate to what they are doing, and that is somehow we are foot dragging. Keep it up. It is all right. We will be here to respond. One of our Members has one tomorrow. It is kind of becoming a habit. But we are doing our best, and we are going to succeed. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to respond to the gentlewoman (Mrs. Lowey) for whom my admiration is boundless. I know she does not want to be unfair; I am convinced of that. When she talked about our stalling tactics, I am somewhat bewildered. I wish the gentlewoman would talk to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and talk to her staff, her committee staff. There is no stalling going on. These are complicated, tough issues. It may be clear to a committed liberal the way to go. I am sure it is clear to committed conservatives the way to go. But they are in different directions. We are trying to bring those together. We are trying to work something out. We are doing it with all diligence, all possible diligence. May I suggest, if the gentlewoman is interested, and I know she is, in helping the gun situation throughout our country, spend some time on urging her administration to enforce existing gun laws. In the last 3 years, there has been one prosecution of a Brady Act violation. We have had a lot of sound and fury for only one prosecution. So there are things that we can do. But meanwhile, we are not stalling. The word is foreign to us. We are moving ahead. I would have liked to have solved this 2 weeks ago. I can assure the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) nobody is stalling.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this has been interesting. Yesterday's motion was interesting, and today's motion, and tomorrow's, and then next week's, every day, I am sure. We have a nice discussion, a serious discussion about these problems; and that is all to the good. But something is missing. Guns are important. Guns are the instruments by which these killings occur. But at the same time, there is so much more to this problem that is not being discussed by anybody and that is the violence that our children are being fed in the entertainment industry, in the movies, in the music, in the Internet games that are played. Violence is a staple. It has desensitized, it has calloused people's sensitivities. And nobody seems to get exercised about that. I got exercised about it. I thought that, since obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, violence, the purveying of violence ought to not be protected because it is a form of obscenity. I got overwhelmed because the lobbyists came out and said, gee, you are going to hurt the retailers that are retailing this stuff. And so, nobody really cares about that, it is guns that are the problem. I say we are filling our children with a culture of death and we are worrying about the guns, the instruments of some of this death. I worry about it, too, and I do not disregard that. But I would like to see some sensitivity on the liberal side for the climate that we are raising our kids in, that is at the day-care centers, where the socialization of our children develops according to the law of the jungle, where parents cannot find the time to spend with their children. There are profound problems with our culture that are not getting better. ``Deviancy'' is being defined down in the famous phrase of the famous Senator from New York. But we are talking about guns. That is okay. Guns are a serious problem. They are dangerous instrumentalities. There is a Second Amendment, however, that I respect. Most of the constitutional scholars that exist that talk about protecting the Constitution kind of gloss over the Second Amendment. But it is there. It is in the Constitution, and it serves a very useful purpose. Because I would not like to see Americans disarmed because the government sometimes in some cultures and histories becomes the adversary, and I think a protection of freedom is that people can maintain arms. But I also believe, as in freedom of speech, that reasonable regulation is appropriate. Freedom of speech is not unregulated. We condition yell ``fire'' in the proverbial crowded theater. There are laws against obscenity, slander, libel, copyrights, all sorts of restrictions on free speech. That does not diminish the significance of it, but it just says it is constitutionally possible to have restrictions. The same thing is true of the Second Amendment. I think everyone should have the right if they are otherwise normal and qualified to own a gun if they want to. There are hunters. There are sportsmen. There is a right to protect our homes. But, at the same time, I believe reasonable restrictions are possible. I do not think criminals should have guns. I do not think young children should have guns. There are all sorts of reasonable restrictions. Assault weapons, by definition, do not belong in the civilian community. I am willing to support those. But I think we have to be honest, and I think that the intellectual community ought to understand that entertainment and advertising and music and culture today is at the bottom of a lot of this problem. Something fills the heart and souls of our kids other than hope and love. There is hate. There is fear. There is a culture of death animating the kids who pull those guns, put them up against the little girl's head and says, Do you believe in God? And she said yes, and then he pulled the trigger. The gun did not go off by itself. That kid pulled that trigger because there was something inside him that was terribly wrong. I think we ought to start addressing this broad picture, not just focusing on the instrumentality of assassination. A knife in the hands of a surgeon is one thing. A knife in the hands of an assassin is another thing. The knife is neutral. It is what animates the user that is really the root problem here, which nobody wants to address because we bump into the entertainment industry, and God forbid we get between a buck and the industry.

Mr. HYDE. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. HYDE. The current law forbids criminals from acquiring guns. If we could enforce the current law, we might make some progress. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentlewoman.

Mr. HYDE. I am all for that. We are working on common sense gun legislation, and I am confident we will pass something that will better the present situation. It will not be everything the gentlewoman wants. It probably will not be everything I would like. But it will be useful. It will contain a clip ban for those large clips; it will contain safety devices, trigger locks. It will contain a juvenile Brady. It will contain a prohibition for minors for possessing assault weapons. It will have mandatory background checks that are reasonable, including at gun shows. So, if the gentlewoman would let us do our work, we will do it. I would say, by the way, that I think the gentlewoman would have made a great Senator.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mrs. McCarthy of New York. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Blagojevich).

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HYDE. Guns are the instrumentality, but the spirit of killing is the person who pulls the trigger, and we ought to take a look at that.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, in response to the very generous comments of the gentlewoman from New York, I appreciate them. My admiration for her is multiplied by her admiration for me. But I would say that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay), who happens to be the Whip, is a person of strong feelings on this issue. He is entitled to them as an elected Member. But he speaks for himself, not for the entire Republican side on this issue. This is an issue that is locally difficult for some and easy for others. But I can assure the gentlewoman, with all due respect to our distinguished Whip, that I can muster, he does not make the sole determination, and we are proceeding, I think, effectively and efficiently. I want to assuage her worries that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Delay) speaks for all of us. He does not on this issue. He speaks for me on a lot of issues, but not this one. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HYDE. I would just say to the gentlewoman that I have no problem with her formulation; unfortunately, the Lautenberg amendment does much more than that. Much more than that. And therein lies the problem. I am happy to yield further if the gentlewoman is going to say something generous. I yield whatever time she wants.

Mr. HYDE. There is a well-known road paved with good intentions, I am aware of it.

Mr. HYDE. I do, too. Let me just say in closing, this interesting philosophical seminar the gentleman from Chicago (Mr. Blagojevich) commented that we did not fund the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms adequately for their job. During the last 5 years the Justice Department's funding has doubled; it is about 14.7 billion now, and gun prosecutions by the Justice Department have dropped almost in half. So we can look there, too, as long as we are exercising the searching gaze of the House of Representatives. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with the gentlewoman from New York. I am a little puzzled by the formulation in the motion to instruct, because we have nothing to do with the calling of the meetings of the conferees. The chairman is the Senator from Utah, and he has the gavel. He can call the formal meetings. But we have been having informal meetings every day, every morning and every afternoon. We have had two today. We are working with all dispatch to try and resolve our difficulties. There were many difficulties, many differences, when we started out. We have them down to about one or two now. If people want to continue to breathe down our neck and push us, that is fine, we are all adults and we can take it. But we are working as expeditiously, as effectively, as we can. These are complicated, difficult, emotional issues. Many considerations have to be borne in mind. Mr. Speaker, I would like us to meet I suppose every day in public, but I can assure the gentlewoman, if she wants a bill, let us continue to move as we are. I wish it could have been done yesterday, but I can assure the gentlewoman that nobody is at fault, other than the complexity, the difficulties of the issues we are dealing with. I am convinced to a moral certitude that everybody wants a bill. Nobody wants this to fail. So we are working the best we can. I wish the gentlewoman would give some credence to our good faith, as I certainly do to the gentlewoman's. I just do not know what to do on this. I want to vote for it because I like the gentlewoman, and I do not like to be negative. On the other hand, it just seems pointless for us to be requiring the conference to meet this week so that motions, including gun safety amendments, could be offered. We are working those out informally, but they are being worked out. Then, we should meet every weekday in public session? I would hope that we will have an agreement, a text, very soon. I do not know when. But the process is working. It is fermenting. We will get a text, and then we can all study it and decide whether it is something we can support or not, and move forward. But we are doing our best. There may be others who could do better. Unfortunately, they are not in positions of authority. I am very satisfied that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Conyers) is serious and working and trying to be helpful, and is helpful, and I believe he feels the same about our side. I will vote no on this, simply because I think it sets out to do something that is not within our competence; that is, to tell the Senator to call meetings every day. I am sure he will call them when we are ready to offer something that can be voted on, and I just assure the gentlewoman, we are inching closer and closer and closer. I do not think it is going to be a matter of days, even, until we are ready with a product that we can all vote up-or-down on. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HYDE. Not in this Congress, though, I would advise the gentlewoman.

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. HYDE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with much that the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) has said. But there is an expectation that passing another law is going to make a great difference. Now, I do not deny that there is merit in additional gun laws. I think we can do some more things. I think we are on the verge of doing that. I think the bill that passed the Senate was an excellent one but for one aspect of it, and that is the gun show aspect. I believe, and we believe, there was some unreasonable aspects to that, and that is a sticking point that we have been working on and working on and working on. But I want to remind the gentlewoman, I do not know how many young people were killed in automobile accidents in the period of time that she had reference to with guns, but I daresay more people were killed in automobile accidents. That does not mean we should stop people driving, but it is just a fact of life. Sixteen Federal laws were violated at Littleton. Sixteen. Nine State laws were violated. So what is our response? Let us heap another law on the fire. But, look, I am for it, notwithstanding the futility, perhaps, of another law. I am working to get one, but I am just suggesting to the gentlewoman these are not easy. And the Senate operates differently than we do. I think it took the Vice President's vote to get that bill out. Happily, he cannot vote in this body. But we are doing our best. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I would just like to comment on the gun show loophole, because I know my good colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), has been a leader on that, and I just do not understand why that issue is so difficult when we know that 90 percent of the people are cleared.