Dianne Feinstein Quotes

The political status legislation which emerged in Congress in 1990 and 1991 did not receive the support needed for enactment into law during my tenure as Attorney General.

As I've learned in my time in the state legislature, important legislation is always a work in progress.

Speaker Newt Gingrich has appointed a task force, which I'm on, and over the next couple months the task force is going to try to come up with legislation that does what we're all trying to do. I feel pretty good about the members that are on the task force.

The legislative agenda reflects the complication of society.

I've pretty much always used my positions as a bully pulpit. What that means is strongly advocating for the things I feel are really important. Gun violence, to me, is the highest-priority public-health issue, and I have to make sure Congress is aware of it, the American people are aware of it, the president is aware of it, and that we all begin together to develop policies to exterminate the disease - the epidemic, really - of gun violence.

Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. The families of Newtown deserve a vote. The families of Aurora deserve a vote. The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence - they deserve a simple vote.

We have other legislation that all of you are aware that I have been so active on, with my colleagues here, and that is to shut down the gun shows.

I come from a state that has virtually no gun control. And yet, at political peril, I voted for an instant background check, which I want to see strengthened and expanded. I voted to ban certain types of assault weapons which are designed only to kill people.

If you think of big, legislative accomplishments, most of them kind of get initiated with the president putting something out there and Congress working on it.

I think that we may lose the argument, but I think we have to talk about gun control.

If it was up to me, if you uttered the word 'gun control,' we'd put you in jail.

We finally need to pass a prohibition on anyone who's on the terrorist watch list from being able to buy a gun in America. If you're too dangerous to fly, you are too dangerous to buy a gun.

My view is that we have the Second Amendment rights to bear arms, and in this country my view is that we should not add new legistlation. I do not believe in new laws restricting gun ownership and gun use.

Can't living with the bill means it won't become law.

You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it.

Congress is, after all, not a body of laymen unfamiliar with the commonplaces of our law. This legislation was the formulation of the two Judiciary Committees, all of whom are lawyers, and the Congress is predominately a lawyers' body.

What is a change-maker? What has Hillary Clinton changed? It is filled with all the cliches that New Agers and leftists glom on to, like "common sense gun control legislation." But it never was defined.

I hope that your committee will not permit doubt as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation

Why can't a democrat get fired up about protecting the environment and enacting gun control legislation just as right wing republicans get fired up about making sure that children have access to assault weapons and banning 'the Catcher in the Rye' and 'Harry Potter'?

There are plenty of towns in America where the 4-year-old has shot his 2-year-old sister by using daddy's gun.

Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of tenative agreements.

We've investigated the gun lobby and its political donations and how it spread the Stand Your Ground laws from Florida.

It is a pipe dream to think that that bill is going to the floor and be voted on.

I shortly will introduce legislation banning the sale, manufacture or possession of handguns (with exceptions for law enforcement and licensed target clubs)... . It is time to act. We cannot go on like this. Ban them!

Writing laws is easy, but governing is difficult.