I'll leave here with my head held high and with confidence that history will judge my time here.

I look forward to working with the NRA to come up with ways in which we can use common sense approaches to reduce the level of violence that we see - in our streets, and make the American people as safe as they possibly can be.

People feel uncomfortable talking about racial issues out of fear that if they express things they will be characterized in a way that's not fair. I think that there is still a need for a dialogue about things racial that we have not engaged in.

Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.

I understand the Second Amendment. I respect the Second Amendment. I think we need to use common sense tools to keep the American people safe, to keep our streets safe.

To those in the executive branch who say ‘just trust us’ when it comes to secret and warrantless surveillance of domestic communications, I say, ‘Remember your history.’

Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square ... I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do.