Science, State, Justice, Commerce, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2007

SCIENCE, STATE, JUSTICE, COMMERCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -

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Mrs. McCARTHY. Mr. Chairman, when the legislation was passed, it was passed with the help of 70 bipartisan Senators. With that, we had many strong certainly gun rights Senators voting for the amendment. We talk about gun safety. We talk about trying to certainly save and prevent as many injuries as possible. We talk about, you know, having it mandatory when you buy a gun. But we are not asking mandatory that the person use the gun lock.

The whole idea was, hopefully, educational-wise, as we do with so many other products, we will have that gun owner use it. Many gun owners use storage locks. And that is great. We are trying to reach out to more.

I have nurses around the country that actually go to gun stores and hand out gun locks like this. They are not expensive. They are $5 to $7. We have seen safety issues certainly at the forefront, helmets for kids when they ride their bicycles. That has saved a lot of head injuries.

When we look at the health care issues on gun violence, unfortunately, especially to children, we see a lot of money in the health care system being used. It is just one other step to hopefully bring down certainly medical care costs in this country, but also more importantly than ever before, certainly work with children to save their lives.

In this past week, we had an incident in New Jersey. A 12-year-old unfortunately got hold of a family gun. Playing with it with his friend, he shot and killed his friend. It was an accident. It was an accident that certainly could have been prevented.

I happen to think that when the Senators on the other side voted, and by the way, this House also voted for the bill, to pass it with the gun safety locks mandatory in that legislation, it is one more thing. Is it a perfect answer? No. We do not have perfect answers.

Since I have been here, I have been trying to convince people that I am not out to take anybody's right to own a gun. But I also talk to an awful lot of gun owners. And they understand the responsibility that they have. Now, if someone buys a gun and it is mandatory to have a gun lock with that gun, they can choose to use it or not to use it. I hope that if they choose not to use it, they would at least give it to someone that would.

As I said, my nurses, they do not have large budgets. But because they work in the emergency rooms and because they are the ones on the front line when these young kids come in, we have done, in my opinion, a very good job on bringing down the number of deaths with children, especially those under 18.

To take away something that this Congress and certainly the other body felt was important enough to put into legislation is something that I think that we should be fighting for. I hope that my colleagues will oppose this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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