The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy - Bill Adler [20]
—Address to the Businessmen’s Executive
Movement for Peace in Vietnam,
February 17, 1971
America has a massive gun problem. The crisis is especially serious for children. In one year, firearms killed no children in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 109 in France, 153 in Canada, and 5,285 children in the United States. For every child in the United States killed with a gun, four more are wounded. The overall rate of firearm-related deaths for American children is nearly twelve times greater than in twenty-five other industrial countries. Yet, the nation’s response to this death toll has been minimal, and little has changed in our approach to regulating guns since 1973.
—Remarks in opposition to legal immunity
for the gun industry, February 25, 2004
How ironic that many of the same individuals who are fighting to repeal federal support for higher education are also fighting to repeal the assault weapons ban and make those deadly weapons available on the streets and neighborhoods of cities across America. Do they think we have too many college students in our communities but not enough guns? We have often heard that the pen is mightier than the sword. I guess they now feel that the pen is more dangerous than a semiautomatic machine gun.
—Statement to the College Democrats
of America, 1995
Terrorists are exploiting weaknesses and loopholes in the nation’s gun laws. A terrorist manual found in Kabul instructed members of al Qaeda on how to purchase firearms legally in the United States. A member of the terrorist group Hezbollah was recently convicted in Detroit of weapons charges and conspiracy to ship weapons and ammunition to Lebanon; he had purchased many of the weapons at gun shows in Michigan. In 1999, a member of the Irish Republican Army spent more than $18,000 in South Florida purchasing dozens of handguns, rifles, and ammunition, which he then attempted to ship to Ireland. That same year, only a lack of cash prevented two domestic terrorists from purchasing a grenade launcher at a gun show, for the purpose of blowing up two large propane tanks in suburban Sacramento.
Enough is enough.
It is also essential to do all we can to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists. To achieve this goal, we should require background checks for all firearm purchases. … The “gun show loophole,” however, makes a mockery of other restrictions by allowing terrorists and other criminals to make illegal firearm purchases at gun shows—no questions asked. It is long past time that we close it.
—Statement on the release of a report on
guns and terror by the Brady Campaign,
December 19, 2001
The city of Hiroshima stands as more than a monument to massive death and destruction. It stands as a living testament to the necessity for progress toward nuclear disarmament.
—Speech, January 11, 1978
The sad reality is that the course, the pace, and the objectives of arms control policies have been more influenced by the arms producers than by the arms controllers.
—Speech, December 2, 1975
Tragically, the world’s oldest civilization and the world’s most modern civilization, the world’s most populous nation and the world’s richest and most powerful nation, glare at each other across the abyss of nuclear war. We should proclaim our willingness to adopt a new policy toward China, a policy of peace, today’s reality, that encourages tomorrow’s possibility.
—Statement to National Committee on
United States-China Relations,
New York City, March 20, 1969
Time and time again, it has been the people of Israel who have shown the courage, the genius, and the determination to give substance to their dreams. Coming together from their roots in a dozen nations,