NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (Senate - July 22, 2009)
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Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I agree with the Senator from Oklahoma on one thing. I hope the American people are watching this debate. I truly do. We are talking about a radical proposal that is opposed by Democrats and Republicans in my home State. I have never seen the phones ringing off the hook to this degree.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a statement by the California Police Chiefs Association.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
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Mrs. BOXER. The police chiefs, letter is so tough and so strong. It reads in part:
The California Police Chiefs Association is strongly opposed to the Thune amendment. The legislation would require California to honor concealed carry permits granted by other States, even when those permit holders could not meet the standards required by California law. The Thune amendment would empower gun traffickers and threaten the safety of our police officers.
If there is one thing we should do for our police officers, it is not make their lives any tougher than they are. We recently lost four police officers in Oakland. The whole community suffered along with those families. My police chiefs talk about this:
A trafficker holding an out-of-State permit would be able to walk the streets of any city in America with a backpack full of loaded guns, enjoying impunity from police unless he was caught in the act of selling a firearm.
This is one of the strongest letters I have ever seen from my police chiefs. This debate is not about the right to own a gun. That has been settled by the Supreme Court in the Heller case. It is about allowing States to determine their own laws.
And I totally get why some more rural States with fewer people would have different laws on conceal and carry than a State of 38 million people, my home State of California. Leave us alone. Leave us alone. You want to have conceal and carry with very few requirements, fine. We have conceal and carry with many requirements, and it is working.
Some States do not have any limit on the number of weapons you could carry with one conceal and carry permit. So someone could come into my State, go into one of my schoolyards, and open up a duffle bag full of perfectly legal weapons.
We have approximately 3,300 gun deaths each year in my State. Let me repeat that: 3,300 gun deaths each year in California. Each one of them has a story of tragedy behind it. A lot of them are kids. So do not come down here and tell my State what we should be doing. I support your State. You should support my State. And that is exactly what Governor Schwarzenegger says. He says we have a right to write our own gun laws.
Mr. President, 34 California mayors and 400 mayors nationwide oppose the Thune amendment, as does the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
We have a lot of work to do. We have to work on health care. We have to work on energy independence. We have to work on getting down the deficit. We have to work on bringing down the debt. We have to work on educating our kids. But, oh, no, we are spending hours on an amendment that is offered that tells our States their laws are not to be respected when it comes to conceal and carry.
Do you know there are some States that allow a spousal abuser to carry a concealed carry weapon? Do you want that spousal abuser, maybe in a state of rage, to walk into another State with a duffle bag full of weapons? And my senior Senator--she read this, and she is a pretty good expert on this issue--says you could have an assault weapon in there. Is that what we want?
It is ironic, as we deal with health care issues--do you know what it costs to try to sew up somebody and heal somebody who has been a victim of a gunshot wound? We are training our doctors who go over to Iraq and Afghanistan in our cities.
So all my colleagues on the other side who come here and talk about Big Brother--Big Brother--going into their States and telling their States what to do, this is a case of Big Brother, clear and simple.
If I need to protect my people in California, I want to leave it to my people in California. I do not want to come in and tell them they have to live with other State laws that are weaker. It is just wrong. It flies in the face of States rights. It flies in the face of common sense. And again, the supreme irony is, it is coming from folks who say they love our States, they respect our States, the Federal Government has too much power. But all of a sudden--
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I hope we will vote against this amendment because this is not what we need in America--more gun deaths and more police being put in the line of fire.
I yield the floor.
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