No child should be afraid to go to school, and Americans from all walks of life: students, parents, law enforcement, veterans, and law abiding gun owners, are demanding that we act to keep our kids safe.
This bill says go after the criminal, don't go after the law-abiding gun manufacturer or the law-abiding gun seller.
Not a single federal dollar should be used for states or cities efforts to target law-abiding gun owners.
Law-abiding Americans deserve to know that their government will not secretly tap their phones, read their medical records, access their library accounts or otherwise invade their personal lives, with no oversight or accountability. Law-abiding Americans also deserve to know that when law enforcement can show an impartial judge clear evidence of criminal activity or a threat to national security, swift and decisive action will be taken to protect the public. That is the balance we must achieve.
My goal in signing these [gun control ] bills is to enhance public safety by tightening our existing laws in a responsible and focused manner, while protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners.
Most laws that we make to protect people from guns are usually ignored by the criminals and obeyed by the law-abiding people. And so I think that if you had better data, there'd be no one more in favor of it than law abiding gun owners because they don't want to be smeared and lumped in with the criminals who use guns.
Making improvements to our background check system and cracking down on illegal gun trafficking are common-sense ways to prevent violence without punishing law abiding gun owners. We owe it to the American people to take real action to reduce gun violence in our communities.
It's not law-abiding gun owners that are the problem here - it's Islamic terrorists.
There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed.
I do not accept that we cannot find a common sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic second amendment freedoms and the rights of law abiding gun owners, while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis.
A clear enunciation of these rights needs to be enshrined in the constitution to guarantee that this basic right of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen shall not be infringed upon by anti-gun public officials.
Gun-free zones don't deter criminals-they help them by providing a guarantee that they will not face any armed resistance. But they do deter the law-abiding. A faculty member with a concealed-handgun permit who breaks the campus gun ban would be fired and likely find it impossible to get admitted to another school. Bringing a firearm into a gun-free zone can have serious adverse consequences for law-abiding people. But for someone like the Virginia Tech killer, the threat of expulsion is no deterrent at all.
Here in Washington State, I've supported efforts to provide our law enforcement with the proper training and resources required to meet their changing and demanding needs of their job. In doing so, I feel that the community and the law enforcement relationship will gratefully benefit from a renewed sense of responsibility and accountability.
As the Left demean law-abiding gun owners, they turn flaccid when faced with the armed felon.
For years, I've gone on television and made the case for the Second Amendment - the right to bear arms. I've pointed out that criminals don't follow gun laws, and I've defended the NRA and its members - law-abiding gun owners like me who have nothing to do with mass shootings or violent gun crimes.
We welcome the National Rifle Association here to Indianapolis. It's tens of thousands of freedom loving Americans. I was grateful to be able to speak to them and interact with them and I really do believe that the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms makes our communities more safe, not less safe.
Those of us in law enforcement must redouble our efforts to resist bias and prejudice. We must better understand the people we serve and protect - by trying to know, deep in our gut, what it feels like to be a law-abiding young black man walking on the street and encountering law enforcement. We must understand how that young man may see us.