The Wall Street Journal-20080117-Notable -amp- Quotable
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Notable & Quotable
A gun-control exchange from Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate:
MODERATOR TIM RUSSERT: Sen. Clinton, when you ran for the Senate in 2000, you said that everyone who wishes to purchase a gun should have a license, and that every handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry. Will you try to implement such a plan?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, I am against illegal guns, and illegal guns are the cause of so much death and injury in our country. I also am a political realist and I understand that the political winds are very powerful against doing enough to try to get guns off the street, get them out of the hands of young people.
The law in New York was as you state, and the law in New York has worked to a great extent. I don't want the federal government pre- empting states and cities like New York that have very specific problems.
So here's what I would do. We need to have a registry that really works with good information about people who are felons, people who have been committed to mental institutions like the man in Virginia Tech who caused so much death and havoc. We need to make sure that that information is in a timely manner, both collected and presented.
We do need to crack down on illegal gun dealers. This is something that I would like to see more of. And we need to enforce the laws that we have on the books. I would also work to reinstate the assault- weapons ban. We now have, once again, police deaths going up around the country, and in large measure because bad guys now have assault weapons again. We stopped it for awhile. Now they're back on the streets.
So there are steps we need to take that we should do together. You know, I believe in the Second Amendment. People have a right to bear arms. But I also believe that we can common-sensically approach this.
RUSSERT: But you've backed off a national licensing registration plan?
CLINTON: Yes.
