William Barr Quotes

Illegal guns don't belong on our streets and we're sending that message loud and clear. We're determined to see that gun dealers who break the law are held accountable, and that criminals who carry illegal loaded guns serve serious time behind bars.

The proven method for saving the lives of innocent Americans is not disarming them. The proven method for saving the lives of innocent Americans is to arrest, prosecute, convict and jail criminal offenders, especially armed career criminals illegally using guns. This is the way to reduce gun violence.

We have to tighten our gun laws and keep guns out of the hands of criminals, the mentally ill, and domestic abusers.

You can have all the gun control laws in the country, but if you don't enforce them, people are going to find a way to protect themselves. We need to recognize that bad people are doing bad things with these weapons. It's not the law-abiding citizens, it's not the person who uses it as a hobby.

If we're going to spend a lot of money to deal with the problem of 200 million guns in the country owned by 65 million gun owners, we ought to have a system which will work and catch criminals.

We don't want crimes committed in New Mexico falling through the cracks. This legislation ensures that there is no area of our state where crimes can be committed without consequence.

Far too often we see attention paid to the firearm and not the criminal.

This battle for 'common-sense' gun control laws pits emotion and passion against logic and reason. All too often in such a contest, logic loses. So, expect more meaningless, if not harmful, 'gun control' legislation. Good news - if you're a crook.

There are competing studies on how much crime drops or doesn't drop when there are strict rules on gun possession and sale. I don't think there's any question that New York City's very tough laws have reduced violence.

America should affirm and establish that in no instance should the guns go in advance of the perfect right.

We feel in the Department of Justice that we represent the people of the country who demand that some effort be made to reach the firearms evil.

Obviously, we think it's important to make sure that firearms do not get in the hands of people who are criminals, convicted felons or adjudicated as mentally ill.

We must continue working to build trust between communities and law enforcement. We must continue working to guarantee every person in this country equal justice under the law. And we must take a hard look at the ease with which wrongdoers can get their hands on deadly weapons and the frequency with which they use them.

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.

Part of my focus on what we need to do around smart gun safety laws is recognize we have to have more enforcement around gun dealers.

While law enforcement officers are working hard in Illinois to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, they face a nearly impossible task because of weak gun laws in surrounding states.

It's a wonderful story for the gun lobby to tell that if you just load up schools with weapons, you'll be safer. All of the evidence suggests that homes and communities that have more weapons have more gun crimes, not less.

The reduction in gun violence President Obama claims to desperately want comes from law enforcement and prosecution, not from political rhetoric, lectures and sentence commutations for federal firearm law offenders and felons.

We need a comprehensive strategy that includes expanding criminal background checks for all commercial gun sales, dedicated federal law to combat gun trafficking, and a strong commitment to mental health services.

You can just assume that better law enforcement response is going to quell the epidemic of gun violence in this country.

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.

To confront criminals, we need to finish with corruption. If we don't do this, there is no hope.

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.

Wouldn't it be better to have a watertight law designed to catch the guilty, rather than a press release law designed to catch the headlines?

We're trying to publicize this one and make people realize that the gun industry can clean up its act and can operate in a way that can reduce the likelihood of guns killing police officers and other innocent people.