[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 25, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H6779-H6780]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             LIVABLE COMMUNITIES AND REDUCING GUN VIOLENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, my purpose in serving in Congress is to 
help make our families live in livable communities, places where those 
families can be safe, healthy, and economically secure. An important 
part of that effort is reducing the toll of death and injury from gun 
violence.
  One of my biggest disappointments of a public service career is our 
inability as a government to take action. Since I have been active in 
politics we have lost 1 million Americans to gun violence, more than 
all the Americans killed in every war since the Civil War. Preparing to 
leave this summer, the House has delayed for 1 year acting on the 
activities for reducing gun violence that were passed by the Senate.
  We can in fact take sensible steps, as we have with other public 
health crises. For instance, we had faced massive carnage on our 
Nation's highways. Yet, for the last 30 years, as part of a larger 
strategy, we have cut automobile deaths in half, not by accepting the 
carnage but by moving forward with a safer automobile product, highway 
design, and attitudes towards things like drunk driving.
  The same approach can work with gun violence. The American public 
wants it and will support it. They want to see steps to make guns 
safer, to keep guns out of the hands of more people with violent or 
criminal histories, to close the gun show loophole.
  One of the most important things we need to do to urge action is to 
put a face on the 1 million people who have been killed. That is an 
effort that I have been attempting in my term of office.
  Today I wanted to say a couple of words about a young man named Ray 
Ray Winston, who was Portland, Oregon's first victim of gang-related 
slaying. Some dismissed his death as something that was a logical 
consequence of a young man running with a tough crowd, being at the 
wrong place at the wrong time. Yet, Ray Ray Winston was a young man who 
was dealt a very tough hand by life: a father incarcerated, not having 
as much family support; a young man who had aspirations, for instance 
in athletics. He had been just a couple of weeks before his death in a 
basketball camp with my son.
  Unfortunately, his death set off a wave of shootings. Teenagers who 
should have been in school instead of out in the streets were involved 
with retaliatory activity, the risk being accentuated by the 
availability of guns and the willingness to use them.
  It is important, Mr. Speaker, that we make sure that Americans 
understand that there is a face behind each one of those statistics. 
Then we need to press for action, first on the local level, not just 
with Governors and mayors and county commissioners and housing 
authorities, but also supporting the activities of citizen activists.
  For example, in my State of Oregon we have put an initiative on the 
Oregon ballot to close the gun show loophole if Congress cannot and 
will not act.
  But there is no escaping the need to put pressure on the national 
level. Sadly, there is a huge difference between the political parties 
regarding gun violence. Sadly, the Republican leadership in the House 
has been an active partner with the NRA preventing us from moving 
forward. They have even boasted that if they were able to elect George 
Bush, they would be able to work right out of the White House.
  But Vice President Gore and the Democratic congressional leadership 
would in fact enact commonsense reforms to reduce gun violence. These 
are steps that are supported by the American public and steps that 
would make a difference. When we come back in September, it will have 
been 13 months since the conference committee on juvenile violence has 
even met.
  I hope the American public will add their voice to demand an end to 
the spineless acceptance of gun violence and enact simple, commonsense 
gun reforms to make our communities more livable, to make our families 
safe, healthy, and economically secure.

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