Carolyn McCarthy

Carolyn McCarthy ( Cook; born January 5, 1944) is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 1997 to 2015. She is a member of the Democratic Party.

On January 8, 2014, she announced that she would not run for re-election that November, citing health; she retired in January 2015 and was replaced by fellow Democrat Kathleen Rice.

Early life

McCarthy was born Carolyn Cook in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in Mineola, a suburban area on Long Island about twenty miles outside Manhattan. Her father was a boilermaker and her mother worked at Woolworth. In her youth, she was an athlete and wanted to become a physical education teacher but found reading challenging and later was diagnosed with dyslexia. After caring for a boyfriend who was injured in a car accident, McCarthy decided to work as a Licensed Practical Nurse. Later she married and she and her family lived in Mineola.

On December 7, 1993, her husband, Dennis, was killed, and her son, Kevin, was severely injured on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train at the Merillon Avenue station in the village of Garden City, when 35-year-old Colin Ferguson opened fire on passengers. Ferguson killed six and wounded 19 others. McCarthy responded to the crime by launching a campaign for more stringent gun control that eventually propelled her to Congress in 1996 on the Democratic ticket. She defeated freshman Republican Dan Frisa by a large margin. In the biographical 1998 television movie '' The Long Island Incident'', which portrayed these events, she was played by actress Laurie Metcalf.

U.S. House of Representatives

During her time in Congress, McCarthy was described as "the doyenne of anti-gun advocates in the House" and "the fiercest gun-control advocate in Congress". She made attempts to broaden her policy portfolio, but was never able to entirely shed the label of being a one-issue congresswoman. She acknowledged this, saying in 2009 that although she is also known for her education and district work, she is still the "gun lady".
McCarthy was a registered Republican before her first run for Congress, although she ran for office as a Democrat and "evolved" over the years into a reliable Democratic vote. She voted with her party 98.1 percent of the time during the 111th Congress.

Committee assignments

* Committee on Education and the Workforce
**Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education (Ranking Member)
** Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training
*Committee on Financial Services
** Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
** Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance

Caucus memberships

*Co-chair, Congressional Hearing Health Caucus
*Congressional Glaucoma Caucus
*Financial Literacy Caucus
* International Conservation Caucus
*U.S.-Israel Security Caucus
*Women's Caucus

Political positions

Gun control

McCarthy's husband Dennis was murdered in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting, which first prompted her to run for Congress.

McCarthy was one of the nation's most vocal gun control advocates. In 1997, she sponsored a bill requiring trigger locks on guns. After the 1997 Empire State Building shooting, she introduced legislation to ban the sale of guns to tourists visiting the United States; afterwards, she received "threats serious enough to require police protection during most public appearances". Later that year, McCarthy unsuccessfully opposed a Treasury bill provision that allowed the importation of weapons that had been modified in order to be compliant with the federal assault weapons ban. In the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre, McCarthy proposed a bill that would require firearms to be child-resistant, would make it more difficult for young adults to purchase guns, and would regulate gun shows.

After the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in September 2004, McCarthy introduced the Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007 to reauthorize it in February 2007.

On April 16, 2007, after the Virginia Tech shootings, McCarthy issued a press release calling for "legislation to prevent further acts of gun violence". Shooter Seung-Hui Cho had passed a background check despite his mental health issues owing to an inconsistent sharing of records between the federal and state governments. McCarthy introduced (H.R. 2640, the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007) to remedy this problem. The bill, with the support of the National Rifle Association, was passed by the House and signed by President Bush. McCarthy said her next priority was closing the gun show loophole.

In January 2012, McCarthy along with Senator Dianne Feinstein from California proposed a bill which would "ban the sale, transfer, manufacturing of importation of 150 specific firearms including semiautomatic rifles or pistols that can be used with a detachable or fixed ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds and have specific military-style features, including pistol grips, grenade launchers or rocket launchers." McCarthy spoke on the bill saying, "The American people are on our side this time, and we do outnumber some of the people who are fighting against us this time."

On a 2007 episode of MSNBC's program Tucker, Tucker Carlson interviewed McCarthy about the Virginia Tech massacre and her proposed reauthorization of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. She said that the legislation would ban large capacity "clips" and "shoulder things that go up."

War in Iraq

McCarthy voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution

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