[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 108 (Wednesday, July 6, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H4292]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             TERRORIST LOOPHOLE/UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS

  (Miss RICE of New York asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Miss RICE of New York. Mr. Speaker, before I was elected to Congress, 
I was a prosecutor for more than two decades, and I am thinking today 
of all the times I have sat with devastated mothers and fathers whose 
sons and daughters had just been taken from them.
  I think about how small our debates must seem to them, how insulted 
they must be when they hear Members of Congress suggest that there is 
simply nothing we could have done to prevent their child's murder.
  There are meaningful actions we can take today. We can require 
background checks for all commercial gun sales in America. And when the 
FBI and the Attorney General have reason to believe that someone is 
engaged in terrorist activity, we can give them the authority to 
prohibit that person from buying a gun. That is common sense. These two 
actions will save lives and will not in any way restrict the Second 
Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens.
  While I appreciate that the Speaker may allow at least one vote on a 
bill related to gun violence this week, it is not a meaningful bill. It 
allows the government to prohibit the sale of a gun to a suspected 
terrorist only if they can show probable cause that the person is 
engaged in terrorist activity with a 72-hour deadline.
  Victims of gun violence deserve more than that. Their families and 
friends deserve more than that. The American people deserve and demand 
more than that.

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