Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, the Vancouver study has been often cited here. Let me quote the authors of that study: As the authors of the Canadian study, we must point out that these officials have misinterpreted our research. The study in the Lancet, the British medical journal, found that 29 cities worldwide where the program was in place, HIV infection dropped by an average of 5.8 percent a year among drug users. In 51 cities that had no needle exchange plans, drug related infection rose by 5.9 percent a year. Clearly these efforts can work.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, first I want to thank the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick), the cosponsor of this amendment, for offering it in the Committee on Appropriations. This amendment simply strikes gratuitous and now moot language carried over from last year in the bill that forbids the District to use its own funds on a lawsuit testing whether American citizens who live in the District are entitled to voting rights in the Congress. Members are looking at the only Member of this body who represents taxpaying American citizens who are denied full representation in the Congress. The language in this bill adds to the basic denial of D.C. voting rights, the denial of the right to seek redress in the courts. Does this Congress really want to pile on the sensitive issue of full democratic representation by seeking to keep the District from testing that denial in court? This provision in the bill is unworthy of this House, unless we want to cross over and join the authoritarian regimes of the world. In the darkest days of southern segregation, no State sought to legislate black people out of court suits. That is exactly what this amendment does to D.C. residents, however. It is a self-serving attempt to maintain the status quo denial of rights, even if it means standing to bar the courthouse door. It should be enough to defeat this amendment that the denial of court redress is patently unAmerican. It is also futile and moot. The lawsuit for D.C. voting rights recently argued before a three-judge panel in the District court is being carried pro bono by a major law firm. The District's involvement always was minimal. The city's Corporation Counsel participated in the oral argument with permission of the court to participate pro bono. The corporation counsel has resigned. His only involvement now would be as a private citizen with no D.C. funds. Please do not allow history to add to the litany of denials of democracy for the people of the District. Wherever they may stand on their constitutional jurisdiction over the District, this is a different case. Members surely do not want to be counted against peaceable redress of constitutional rights through the courts. No Federal funds are involved. Even District expenditures are not now being used to support this suit. Please remove these proceedings once and for all from our appropriation bill.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to clarify. The courts do not need this amendment. Gay couples adopt in the District of Columbia and that is not a matter where there is now need for clarification from Congress or anybody else. There is no chance that unsuitable parents can adopt in the District because the courts strictly regulate these adoptions. This is a gay-bashing amendment. Yet everybody knows that gays can only get to adopt, under court proceedings, children that nobody else will adopt, the disabled children, the older children. There are practical reasons why this is an important amendment. It guarantees that the child would have ongoing financial responsibility from both people; that the child's interest before doctors and hospitals and in day care programs would be protected; that in the event one parent died, the child could directly inherit; and that if a parent became ill or died, workmen's compensation and Social Security benefits could be offered. Who would want to deny these to a child because of some notion that the parents do not suit the Members here today? They suit this child. These children need loving parents. There are 3,000 of them. They are desperate for homes. Do not pass this tragic amendment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, if I could respond, I want to thank the gentleman for working with me on an issue of mutual interest so that we did not have to go into statutory language or a point of order and yet could get the agreement of the District after a call to the police department on a matter that is of considerable importance. I appreciate the gentleman drawing it to my attention, and I appreciate the way in which the gentleman has worked with me collegially to get a satisfactory solution.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I simply rise to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray) for working with me and working with Mayor Williams until we reached a satisfactory accommodation on this matter. I want to assure him that he should not have any doubt that we will, quote, do right by our own children. All that was necessary was the opportunity for the mayor, who has, after all, had many things on his plate inheriting the kind of government he did, to get to the notion that is close to him as well, to aggressively seek legislation that would deal comprehensively with smoking and tobacco use by children. I do want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Bilbray), though, for the way in which he pursued this and to indicate to other Members that he went at this matter in a way that was satisfactory to him and to us in the way I most prefer, by simply working with me until we got it right. I appreciate the way in which he worked with me and with the city. I want to assure other Members that I always stand ready to work, to reach a similar accommodation when they have problems that they want solved in the city.

Ms. NORTON. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, this is the most inflammatory and heartless of the harshly anti-Democratic amendments before us today. It says ``drop dead'' to the people I represent. I oppose this amendment because it is outrageously discriminatory to pick out one jurisdiction in the United States that may not use its own funds to save the lives of its own people. We have seen an attempt to take back the words of Dr. C. Everett Koop. Nothing can take back what he said. He expresses his ``strong belief that local programs of clean needle exchange can be an effective means of preventing the spread of the disease.'' And he says that if local authorities and organizations determine it is appropriate, ``Congress should allow them to use all possible measures.'' My police chief, Charles Ramsey, said that ``the program is necessitated by the need to effectively combat the spread of HIV- AIDS.'' He says, ``it is well-managed and has an exemplary return rate.'' He says, ``I have received no reports which indicate that the program has been abused in any way or has created serious public safety problems in the District.'' Mr. Speaker, AIDS is out of control in my district, especially in the African American community. The program is privately run by the Whitman-Walker Clinic. It is nationally recognized. A vote for the Tiahrt amendment assures a veto of the entire appropriation. I ask Members to defeat this amendment and rescue not only my appropriation but the potential survivors of the AIDS epidemic in the District.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Let us face it. What is this amendment doing here? This amendment is inspired by a medical marijuana initiative many residents may have opposed, but the outcome is unknown because of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr) amendment last year. It is outrageous enough to overturn local legislation without the consent of the governed. Mr. Barr just cannot wait. He wants to strike down a local initiative before it is enacted and even without knowing that it will be enacted. Even if a medical marijuana initiative passes, it could not move forward without legislation by the city council. The poor wording of this amendment will lead to consequences that even the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barr) did not intend. The phrase: Otherwise reduce penalties associated with drug use is so overbroad it will produce challenges against what courts and prosecutors do every day. If we cannot otherwise reduce penalties, we may not be able to reduce drug sentences for routine matters like a defendant's cooperation with the prosecution or successful completion of drug rehabilitation. I would never ask my colleagues to support permissive drug use, and our own constituents know us better than that. The full Committee on Appropriations eliminated this amendment because it recognized that democracy, not drugs, was the issue. Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues to respect that judgment. The gentleman from Georgia and any Member of this body can repair to their remedies after the legislation is enacted. We ask, for goodness sake, that you spare us something unprecedented, even for the District of Columbia, prior restraint on democracy.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues are about to have an out of body legislative experience. When the D.C. appropriation comes to the floor shortly, they will be asked to appropriate somebody else's money. Worse, a local budget that has no business here will become an excuse for attachments that are anathema to the people I represent. In our Federalist system no action is regarded as more oppressive than national usurpation of local law. The Republic will not fall if my colleagues vote against these attachments. It will be weakened if they do what they would not stand for in their own districts and vote to tell local residents how they may spend their own local funds. Please vote against the attachments to the D.C. appropriation.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. I accept the gentleman's great American analogy, federalist analogy. But as the gentleman himself served in local government, he will, I think, recognize that, at the local level, there was voting representation so that there had been agreement to live by majority vote. Because even at the lowest local level, there was voting representation. The gentleman recognizes that I have no vote in this body, and what vote I did have was taken from me. I just want to indicate that I would, in fact, agree if, in fact, this State analogy were fully perfect.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I want to correct the Record that the President never specifically signed the D.C. appropriation last year. It was the year of the great appropriation debacle.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, it was within an omnibus bill. The President's agents sought to get each and every one of those amendments off, did get the adoption amendment off, for example, but was not able in the course of negotiations to get all of the amendments off. So the President is not being inconsistent when he says he will veto this year.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield on that?

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding time to me, and take this opportunity to thank him for his wonderful attention and his hard work on behalf of the District. If I may, I would like to thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for his very generous remarks concerning me. This year had promised to be far smoother for the D.C. appropriation than recent years. The gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) himself, the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young), the ranking members, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), and especially the gentleman from Oklahoma (Chairman Istook)) worked hard to achieve consensus on the D.C. budget, and they succeeded beautifully. The District's consensus budget, containing only locally-raised revenue, also found consensus in committee. The D.C. budget is balanced and frugal, with prudent spending, a tax cut, and a surplus. How, then, can we now allow this thoroughly cooperative give-and-take process to be destroyed by its opposite, the authoritarian imposition of attachments, strongly and unanimously opposed by all the local officials, without exception, who alone are accountable to the residents who live here? How, how can we allow inflammatory and undemocratically imposed attachments to overwhelm the excellent work the gentleman from Oklahoma (Chairman Istook) has done on public safety in this bill, for example? He has crafted language which added Federal funds to require drug testing and treatment for 30,000 people on parole. I thank him. How can we take an excellent appropriation bill and bring it down with a veto that has been promised if we sully it with irrelevant appendages that are wholly disrespectful of local self-government? How can we repeat the performance of last year's pitiful D.C. appropriations debacle? Make no mistake, this appropriation is headed for a completely avoidable train wreck. After listing all the attachments before us, the administration's statement of policy says, and I am quoting, ``If such amendments are adopted and included in the bill presented to the president, the senior advisors will recommend that the President veto the bill.'' Out of respect for the half million people I represent, the new reform mayor, and the revitalized city council, I ask for a clean appropriation. Members and I may well disagree with local law, but a vote to leave a local law standing is no vote in favor of that law. They did not make it, they cannot leave it standing. Rather, it is an exercise in the oldest of American Federalist exercises. It is a vote for democracy at the local level. Members jealously guard the local prerogatives of their districts. I demand no less respect for the people I represent. Please respect our rights as American citizens and vote against each and every one of the riders that will come before us on the District appropriation. I want to close, Mr. Chairman, by drawing to the Members' attention a recent article in the Washington Post that struck me with deep poignancy. It is headed, ``U.S. to Host Russians for a Look at Democracy.'' We are told that this body has appropriated $10 million in an emergency appropriation, no less, to bring Russians here to see how American democracy works. James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, said, and he is quoted in the article, that ``The U.S. Government is bringing `a genuinely large number of young Russians, the entire cohort of young leaders, especially from the provinces, to observe American life and democratic institutions.''' Mr. Chairman, I can only ask that for their sake and ours, we deny the Russians gallery passes to witness the D.C. appropriation on Thursday. We are told that bringing large numbers of Russians to the United States, according to Mr. Billington, and I am quoting him now, ``Avoids the patronizing syndrome of sending Americans to Russia to tell the Russians how to run their lives.'' Instead, Mr. Speaker, the Russians will see this House telling the residents of the District how to run their lives. It is not the Russians who will be patronized on Thursday if these amendments are offered, it is the people I represent. We are told that the first 3,000 Russian participants are scheduled to arrive July 28. Fate, how cruel. This is just in time to see the sorriest spectacle left against our stated democratic principles. Mr. Billington apparently wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times, where he criticized, according to this article, criticized the United States for doing too little to support the development of democracy in Russia. Mr. Chairman, the criticism belongs with this House and on this bill. We are doing or will do, if we continue in the way we are going, too much to destroy democracy in the Nation's Capitol with the attachments to this bill. There is still time to show the Russians that democracy works, even in the Capitol of the United States. I urge my colleagues to vote against all the anti-democratic amendments that will come to the House floor on Thursday. Do it not for the Russians, do it for the people I represent, and do it in the name of American democracy.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), who have worked so hard and so well to bring the D.C. appropriation to the floor early this year. My thanks also to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) who met with the District's new mayor Tony Williams and me earlier this year and indicated that they would work for early consideration of the city's budget. They have kept that promise. I want to say a special word of sincere appreciation to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) in particular for his openness and communication with me and with city officials that enabled us to settle amicably the small differences that inevitably arise. His respect for the work of our new mayor and the D.C. City Council is manifested in the city's consensus budget which came with the approval of the District's Control Board and to which the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) has now given his approval as well. This hard work is now threatened by amendments that legislate on the appropriation in ways that are strongly opposed by the new mayor and all the members of the revitalized city council. Congress has the right to make policy decisions for this Nation. You have no right to dictate policy to a local jurisdiction. Yet four amendments have been made in order and protected, and they are taken straight out of the annals of authoritarianism. They would impose on the District a provision that is not only grotesquely anti-democratic, but also is moot, that prohibits local funds for a constitutional test of congressional voting rights, a prohibition on even local funds to contribute to a private lifesaving needle exchange program that has saved hundreds of residents from death and disease caused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, a prohibition on unmarried couples jointly adopting a child despite 3,000 children awaiting adoption, an entire bill penalizing the possession of tobacco by minors that Mayor Williams has specifically asked be deferred in favor of his own approach, and an amendment that seeks to overturn a local initiative on medical marijuana when no such law has been enacted. The bill itself also contains two provisions highly objectionable to city residents and elected officials that I cannot possibly support, a prohibition on the use of even local funds for abortions for poor women and a bar on implementation of the city's domestic partners law. The district has just elected a new reform minded mayor and revitalized its city council. They have sent us a balanced budget with a surplus consisting only of their own money with prudent investments in neglected services and with a tax cut for residents and businesses. Their work should not be undermined by the imposition of the personal preferences of Members on a local jurisdiction when Members are not accountable to local voters. The cumulative effect of these appendages to what is essentially a local budget is so obnoxious that a veto specifically has been threatened. I can only plead with my colleagues to save my appropriation from needless contention and a veto by defeating each and every one of these autocratic, anti-home rule amendments. This rule defeats the good work of the subcommittee by drowning it with irrelevant legislation anathema to the people I represent. I therefore must ask my colleagues, must plead with my colleagues, to vote against this rule.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, long after the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the threat of nuclear weapons remains. Today, the United States continues to possess around 7,300 operational nuclear warheads, and the other declared nuclear powers--Russia, Great Britain, France, and China--are estimated to possess over 10,000 operational warheads. Furthermore, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, especially in countries in unstable regions, is now one of the leading military threats to the national security of the United States and its allies. The United States, as the sole remaining superpower and the leading power in the world, has an obligation to take bold steps toward encouraging other nuclear powers to eliminate their arsenals and to prevent the proliferation of these weapons. That is why I have chosen today, on the 54th anniversary of the first test of a nuclear explosive in Alamogordo, New Mexico, to introduce the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act of 1999. The bill would require the United States to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons and to refrain from replacing them with weapons of mass destruction once foreign countries possessing nuclear weapons enact and execute similar requirements. My bill also provides that the resources used to sustain our nuclear weapons program be used to address human and infrastructure needs such as housing, health care, education, agriculture, and the environment. By eliminating our nuclear weapons arsenal, the United States can realize an additional, ``peace dividend'' from which to fund critical domestic initiatives, including new programs proposed in the Administration's FY 2000 budget. Many courageous leaders from the United States and from around the world have spoken out on the obsolescence of nuclear weapons and the need for their elimination. Those leaders include retired Air Force General Lee Butler and more than 60 other retired generals and admirals from 17 nations, who, on December 5, 1996, issued a statement that ``the continuing existence of nuclear weapons in the armories of nuclear powers, and the ever-present threat of acquisition of these weapons by others, constitute a peril to global peace and security and to the safety and survival of the people we are dedicated to protect'' and that the ``creation of a nuclear-weapons-free world [is] necessary [and] possible.'' Recent events on the Indian subcontinent demonstrate the urgent need for passage of my bill. Last year, in defiance of the nonproliferation efforts of the United States and the world community, India detonated several underground nuclear test devices, after it had refrained from doing so since its first nuclear test in 1973. Pakistan, a neighboring country with which India has fought three wars since the British colonial period ended in 1947, soon followed suit with its own nuclear tests. The trading of nuclear tests last year between India and Pakistan were a source of heightened concern as armed skirmishes persisted last month in the disputed Kashmir region adjoining those two nations. The United States and the world community clearly must redouble their efforts to obtain commitments from India and Pakistan to refrain from actual deployment of nuclear weapons, as well as to contain other countries that aspire to become nuclear powers, such as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, from moving forward with their programs. However, the United States will be far more credible and persuasive in these efforts if we are willing to take the initiative in dismantling our own nuclear weapons program and helping arms industries to convert plants and employees to providing products and services that enhance the wealth and quality of life of ordinary citizens. I ask my colleagues to cosponsor the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act of 1999 and for the committees with jurisdiction over the bill to mark it up quickly so that it can be considered and passed by the full House.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and I thank him for his leadership and the leadership of the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) as well for this timely and wonderful resolution. I want to say up front, though, that now that we have our own women's world cup team, which has found a home in the hearts of their countrymen and countrywomen, that I hope, as the Member who represents the Nation's Capitol that women will find a home right here for a team from the yet-to-come but sure-to-come women's soccer league. We have in this town a men's soccer league championship team, D.C. United, which has won back-to-back championships. All we need now is a women's team to match our male champions. I am awfully proud of the Congress' well, because the Congress had a lot to do with the victory that was achieved last week. Congress helped bring this victory when more than 25 years ago, we passed Title IX. Thus Congress was on the field when Briana Scurry, the goalie, blocked the Chinese penalty kick to set up Brandi Chastain, who of course, did the winning kick. When 90,000 people in the Rose Bowl cheered, they were also cheering for what Congress did when it enacted Title IX. Title IX, each of these women has said when interviewed, made them the best in the world, because Title IX gave them the opportunity that bore fruit on the soccer field this past week. Title IX has done the same for women's basketball, and Title IX is doing the same for women's sports all across this land where women and girls have discovered that sports is for them, too. Let the victory on the soccer field settle the controversy over the division of funds by colleges and universities between men and women's teams. Equality on the field.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2035 raises the annual budget authorization for the National Highway Traffic Administration for fiscal years 1999 through 2001 to provide for an annual maximum authorization of $98.3 million for motor vehicle safety programs and $9.6 million for motor vehicle information programs for a total annual authorization of $107.9 million. An increase in NHTSA's authorization is necessary because last year, when the committee acted on the reauthorization bill, NHTSA failed to provide the committee with the correct funding request for both its safety and information activities. With the increase in funding provided by H.R. 2035, the National Highway Traffic Administration will be able to undertake important motor vehicle safety and information activities that it otherwise could not. This bill was ordered reported by the full committee by voice vote. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker and new Members, take note: Soon Members will consider an appropriation of somebody else's money, the residents of the District. I appreciate the expeditious way the District appropriation is being moved this year. The Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), with whom Mayor Tony Williams and I met early on, understand that D.C. should be first, not last. We also appreciate the communication that characterizes the process led by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) working with the ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran). Mr. Speaker, all can see that this is a new day in the District. Let us make it a new day in the Congress as well. District residents have ordered up a new mayor and a revitalized city counsel. They have done their home rule homework. Mayor Williams and District officials deserve a new attitude from the Congress. That attitude begins with basic respect for D.C. law without appendages, a ``you-demand'' consent of the governed for my colleagues' constituents. Mine deserve the same.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor in celebration of the freedom of workers to join unions. Would that it were only a celebration for 7 days in June. Workers across the United States are crying out for their right to join unions. Is this America? It is a sad day when we have to draw attention to the importance of the freedom to organize in a society like ours. One of those 7 days in June will be this Friday, the day in the District of Columbia where Members of the region will sit and hear testimony from union members in this region about the difficulties they have had in joining unions and forming unions in this region. I know something about this area. I continue to be a tenured professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. When I was full- time, one of the major courses that I taught was labor law, and I saw and read and studied the deterioration of workers' rights, of the right to strike. I saw the contrasts between a period of great prosperity in American life when business understood that part of the symmetry of the workplace was the right to organize. We have come to a point instead where there is no longer talk about occasional union-busting, but workers meet wholesale resistance to the development of unions in the workplace whereby most employers, confronted with workers who want to join unions, develop strategies to keep unions from even getting a vote on whether workers want a union, in fact. Show me a society where the right to organize is in danger, and I will show Members a society without full democracy. What has our society come to? Wall Street is bursting at the seams. We have had surpluses for years on end. We have the best economy of the century, and we do not want workers to organize to get a fair share of that economy? We are sending people out off the welfare rolls, as well we should, and we do not want them to be organized so they can get a fair share, so they can in fact support their families as they leave welfare? What have employers to fear? After all, unions have to win a vote the way we have to win a vote in order to come back to this House every 2 years. That is hard to do with today's demographics, where workers are by no means automatically oriented towards unions. Why, then, do half of the employers threaten to shut down if their workers organize? Why do they fire one in four workers who in fact organize? Despite these extraordinary efforts, unions are now having remarkable success. They are winning half of their elections of 500 or more unions. Minority and female workers in particular fare much better when they are organized than when they are not.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, last week we had a heartbreaking debate on guns. Women Members of this body felt this debate with particular poignancy. If the truth be told, we regard ourselves as special guardians of issues that affect women and families, not because we are such, we are after all, self-anointed, but because we choose to be. However, I ask you to imagine a bill that came from outside, thrown in like a piece of dynamite to wipe out all your local gun laws, whether you are from the West and treasure your right to have a gun or whether you are from a crowded city and treasure your right to ban guns. Two amendments came forward that would have invaded my district with law from this body. We defeated one handily, that that simply wiped out handgun laws in the District of Columbia. The other, we almost defeated. That is the one I want to talk about this afternoon, because it is one that is of special importance to women and children, and that is a bill that would have allowed people in the District of Columbia to have guns in their home. Some Members came up to me and said, ``Well, that sounds reasonable to me to have a gun in your own home.'' So why should we not impose that on the District even though your city council has said otherwise and even though no Member here would impose anything on anybody else's district. Nevertheless, I can understand the surface appeal of a gun in your own home. Ask the women in your own district why they do not want a gun in their own home. No woman in America wants a gun in the home and there is a very good reason why. The greatest cause of death of women is inflicted upon them not by rapists in the streets but by guns and knives in the hands of their own partners in their own homes as it is now. Most of them go to the hospital, the victim of beatings, often severe. Imagine if guns were freely available in homes, particularly in large cities which have rampant domestic violence rates. Most of those who think about guns in the home are surely unaware of the most tragic statistics of all, and they are not the statistics from Columbine. They are the statistics that are awesomely larger. They are statistics that show accidental killings occur routinely from guns that are simply lying in the home, often out of the reach of children but found by children whose natural curiosity often makes them look for guns. Very few guns are used the way they are in the movies to counter somebody entering through the bedroom window and you shoot them dead. That is not what happens to guns in the home. Look at the statistics and you will know. But in big troubled cities there are other hazards in addition. The lady who takes care of my handicapped daughter when I told her about how some people wanted guns in the homes gave me I think the best wakeup call of all. She said, ``Oh, my God, what will happen to these bad teenagers?'' The first she could think of is in her high crime neighborhood in southeast Washington, the troubled teens would be all over the place. She has a hard enough time with them now, but if they think that everybody is packing a gun in her neighborhood, she did not know what she would do. I know that because I represent this city. I do not expect Members to know that who do not. That is why I do not expect them to impose guns on me when my city council has not done so. In this town, particularly in high crime neighborhoods, the criminals and, yes, the teens would be breaking in not looking for computers but looking for guns because they hear the people are packing guns now because the Congress says, ``That is the thing to do if you live in a high crime city, pack your gun in.'' I do not need this body to send this message to a city that is one of the most violent cities in the United States and that our police chief is just getting under control. He was at the forefront of those who said he did not want our handgun laws wiped out and for God sakes do not send a message from the House that everybody ought to pack a gun. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, a grandmother named Helen Foster was shot in the back in southwest Washington as she gathered children after she heard gunshots, recognizing that they might be in danger. She died at D.C. General Hospital. What happens when there are guns in the home in a city like this? What happens when there are no handgun laws in a city like this? Grandmothers get shot in the back trying to defend their children. Let the District be the District. Go home and be what you want to be. Let my District be what it is.