Sheldon Whitehouse Quotes

What we do in Connecticut is ban assault weapons. We ban high-capacity magazines. We have true universal background checks, and we require everybody to get a permit from their police department before they can carry a pistol.

This isn't about grabbing people's guns; this isn't about changing the Second Amendment. This simply says that someone who is on the terrorist watch list - a dangerous terrorist - should not be able to purchase a gun.

We must permanently reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban and the restrictions on high capacity magazines.

I do support and believe in the Second Amendment. But I do think we need more background checks rather than less.

Gun owners and non-gun owners alike agree on expanding background checks, making gun trafficking a serious crime with stiff penalties, making it illegal for all stalkers and all domestic abusers to buy guns, and expanding mental health resources so the mentally ill find it easier to receive treatment than to buy firearms.

Most Americans think there's already universal background checks. They don't understand why there wouldn't be a background check to purchase a weapon.

Respecting the Second Amendment does not mean abandoning common sense. The right to own guns in this country must remain, while we also must strengthen our laws to prevent mass shootings.

The Brady Act was passed in response to what Congress described as an 'epidemic of gun violence.'

As President Obama is inaugurated for a second time, the biggest political surprise is that gun control is now key to his political legacy.

Under a firearms policy largely dictated by the National Rifle Association, people on terrorist watch lists can and do buy guns in the United States without difficulty. Congress decided, over the objections of the FBI, that government records of who bought guns should not be kept for more than twenty-four hours.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash — for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you

Concealed-carry reciprocity, I believe, undermines American gun laws by forcing states to accept carry-permitting standards of every other state, including some states that have no standards at all.

I definitely think there should be stronger gun safety laws, including prohibiting the sale of assault weapons, probably banning the sale of certain magazines that allow you to fire a large amount of bullets.

I had a 100 percent voting record with the NRA, but I don't believe in bazookas in our schools.

If you're too dangerous to buy an airplane ticket, you're too dangerous to buy an assault weapon. And, when we talk about the Second Amendment - I support the Second Amendment - but the Second Amendment was created and designed to prevent tyranny and not to encourage terror.

Right now, there is no way that the federal government can prevent someone who's on the terror watch list from buying a gun - none.

Congress can prevent future tragedies by requiring a background check for every gun purchase in America.

It is absolutely absurd that someone who is deemed unsafe to get on an airplane is allowed to buy a gun in America. It's truly absurd.

In 1999, the NRA leadership in Washington, pretty much the same people intact, were for (expanded background checks.)

It defies common sense that stores are fined for selling toy guns to children, but someone who isn't even allowed to board an airplane in this country can purchase as many real guns he wants with no questions asked.

I have an A rating from the NRA.

We need to ban assault weapons. We need to ban the high-capacity clips and magazines. We need serious background information, system upgrade.

If I were governor, and a bill came to my desk that provided for background checks at gun shows, I would sign that.

I support an assault weapons ban, and I'll tell you why. We already have one in California, so I don't support doing anything above what we do in California.

So many deaths could be prevented if measures were implemented to expand background checks and keep individuals like John Hinckley from ever buying firearms in the first place.