[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 114 (Thursday, July 14, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H4994-H4999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GUN VIOLENCE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, this is the last hour that Congress will
meet before the 7-week recess that the Republicans scheduled for today.
We are going to devote this last hour to focus on an issue incredibly
important to the communities of the people we represent and to this
country, and that is the issue of gun violence.
As you may recall, Mr. Speaker, we had a sit-in where we came to the
House floor to protest the congressional inaction in moving forward on
sensible gun safety legislation, to bring attention, to break through
this logjam and force our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to
bring these bills to the floor for an up-or-down vote.
We tried motions to recommit and efforts to add these pieces of
legislation to bills that were moving as amendments and every mechanism
we could to try to force some action because the American people are
demanding action--asking--demanding that we do something in the face of
the epidemic of gun violence in this country.
We talk a lot about gun violence, but I think it is important to
recognize this is a uniquely American problem. We kill each other in
this country with guns 297 times more than Japan, 49 times more than
France, and 33 times more than Israel, just to give you some
comparisons. Every day, 297 people in America are shot with a gun, and
each day, 89 of these people die. On average, 31 Americans are murdered
with guns every day, and 151 are treated for gun assault in an
emergency room. Thirty thousand Americans die every year at the hands
of a gun, and the United States firearm homicide rate is 20 times
higher than the combined rates of 22 countries that are our peers in
wealth and population. So it is important, as we make this final plea,
to understand that this epidemic of gun violence is a uniquely American
problem.
We just marked, the day before yesterday, the 1-month anniversary of
the assault in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub that took the lives of 49
young people. We just marked the horrific occurrence in Dallas that
took the lives of five American heroes, Dallas police officers. It
feels like every day there is another mass shooting or a gun tragedy
that we hear about and read about in this country.
What we ask the Republican House leadership is to bring two bills to
the floor. There are, I think, 217 bills in total that will respond to
gun violence in a variety of different ways, but we said let's start
with the easy pieces of legislation, legislation that is widely
supported by the American people that will make a real difference in
reducing gun violence in this country and keeping guns out of the hands
of people who shouldn't have them--that is, universal background checks
to make sure that someone doesn't get a gun who is not permitted to
have a gun under our laws, and keeping them out of the hands of
domestic abusers, criminals, and suspected terrorists.
The second one is the no fly, no buy. It says, look, if you are on a
terrorist watch list and we have determined you are too dangerous to
get on an airplane, then you are certainly too dangerous to go into a
gun store and buy any gun you want.
So those two pieces of legislation, which are really common sense,
would be an important first step to demonstrate to the American people
that we understand our responsibility to take some action to reduce gun
violence in this country and to keep guns out of the hands of people
who should not have them.
Rather than taking up those bills, regrettably, our colleagues on the
other side of the aisle adjourned, and they went flying out that door
so they could go home and enjoy a holiday in the summer with their
family and friends without ever taking up a single piece of legislation
to address gun violence.
We tried in every way to say to our colleagues: Bring these bills to
the
[[Page H4995]]
floor for a vote. If you don't support them, make your arguments
against them. Let the American people hear you defend that we shouldn't
have universal background checks and that it is okay for someone on the
terrorist watch list to buy a gun. But come to the floor, make your
argument, and vote. That is what we get sent here to do. Give us a
vote.
Instead, they went out that door, and by doing so, by failing to act,
they dishonored the memory of the thousands and thousands of Americans
who have lost their lives to gun violence.
Mr. and Mrs. Wright, Maria and Fred Wright, were here the day before
yesterday on the 1-month anniversary of Orlando. They came to the
Capitol rather than spending time at home continuing to grieve about
the murder of their son, Jerald, at the Pulse nightclub. They came here
to talk to Members of Congress. They wrote an op-ed that was published
on the day of their visit to Washington.
They said: ``While in D.C., we don't want just thoughts and prayers
from Members of Congress. We want them to look us in the eyes and tell
us: How will they work to make our Nation safer against gun violence?
How will they perform their constitutional duty to `insure domestic
tranquility' and `promote the general welfare'--some of the main roles
of government according to our Constitution? How will they work to
stand up to the extremist gun lobby and urge their fellow Members to do
the same?''
That is what they wrote: Look in our eyes. They lost their son, and
what Congress did, regrettably, is nothing. They recessed for 7 weeks.
Mr. Speaker, we have a moral obligation to protect the lives and
well-being of our constituents. That is our most sacred responsibility
as Members of Congress.
We do that in a variety of different ways. We do that by responding
to public health crises, like the Zika virus, which we also failed to
do. We do that by making sure people can have safe drinking water in
places like Flint and cities all across this country, which we failed
to do. We do that by protecting our constituents from the ravages of
gun violence in this country, and we did nothing.
We have a responsibility as Members of Congress, when faced with
these sorts of epidemics, to do something. People who are living in
communities all across this country, who are living with the
consequences of this gun violence, say: What are you doing to stop it?
They know we can't pass one law that is going to stop everything,
but, taken together, we can pass legislation--particularly these two
bills--that will substantially reduce the likelihood that dangerous
people will get guns and harm the communities we represent.
I will continue to add my voice to this fight, as I know many members
of our caucus will.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman from California
(Mr. Thompson). He really has led our effort as the chair of the
Democratic caucus on gun violence prevention and someone who has been a
great champion in this effort.
Mr. THOMPSON of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
thank him also for taking the time and the effort to put this Special
Order together on such an important issue, important to all Americans.
I was a little bit taken aback. I came down to the floor early to
participate in this Special Order, and I heard my friend from across
the aisle who preceded us in Special Orders talking about the effort on
the part of Democrats today in our 1-minute remarks of pushing for a
vote on the issue of gun violence prevention.
Mr. Cicilline, I think, laid it out clearly what it is we are trying
to do. We want a vote on two bills. One is a bill that would require
background checks for anyone who purchases a firearm through a
commercial sale. So it would expand existing law that says that you
have to have a background check if you purchase a firearm at a licensed
dealer to include other commercial sales: ads in a newspaper, online
purchases, or gun show purchases.
Then the other bill is the bill that has been referred to as no fly,
no buy, that says, if you are too dangerous in the eyes of the FBI to
fly on an airplane, then you shouldn't be able to go into a gun store,
pass a background check, and buy any gun that you want.
My friend from across the aisle said that this was clever and cute.
Mr. Speaker, make no mistake about it: this is not clever nor is it
cute. This is serious business. People are dying every day at the hands
of someone using a firearm.
In the 3\1/2\ years since 20 elementary schoolchildren were murdered
at Sandy Hook in Connecticut, 1,196 mass shootings have taken place in
our country. Over 34,000 people have been killed by someone using a
gun. We have had over 500 legislative days. What have we done during
that time? We have had 31--31--moments of silence for those people who
were murdered, but we have had zero votes on the issue of gun violence
prevention, not one debate and not one vote on expanding background
checks.
The gentleman across the aisle, I think, used some misleading
statements when he talked today. He said that we should enforce the
laws that are on the books. Well, when the background check bill was
put into the law, there weren't many people buying guns online. As a
matter of fact, we weren't buying much online. It was a long time ago,
and online shopping had not come about as it is today, so the law
didn't include that. So, obviously, we need to look at change in bills
as we go.
What we want to do is we want to make sure that criminals,
terrorists, and the dangerously mentally ill have a difficult time
getting guns. The best way to do that, and our first line of defense in
accomplishing that, is background checks.
You know, Mr. Speaker. You have been in the courtroom. You have seen
these things happen before. You know this issue inside and out. They
work.
Every day, 170 felons are prohibited from purchasing firearms because
of background checks. Every day, 50 domestic abusers are prohibited
from buying firearms because of the background checks. Yet they can
leave the gun store, they can go online or go to a gun show, and they
can buy the same gun without a background check that they were
prohibited from buying in the gun store.
My friend from across the aisle, I think, was also misleading when he
said that Democrats want to focus on the gun. There is no focusing on
the gun. We know that guns don't get up and shoot somebody on their
own. We are trying to focus on the person trying to buy that gun. That
is why we want to do a background check. If the person is a criminal,
if the person is a terrorist, if the person is a drug addict or a
domestic abuser or dangerously mentally ill, the law says then they
can't buy a gun at a licensed dealer.
Well, we have got this gaping loophole where they can leave the
licensed dealer, they can go to the gun show or they can go online, and
they can buy that gun. We want to stop that from happening.
My friend from across the aisle also said that these laws don't work.
Well, we know they work. I just gave you the numbers on how many felons
and domestic abusers are stopped every day from purchasing a gun. But
you can look at the studies that were done in two States.
One was in Connecticut. Connecticut passed a permit-to-purchase law
in their State where you had to get the background check to purchase.
What happened in that State after that law was passed? A 40 percent
drop in homicide by firearms. Now, go down the road to Missouri, who
repealed their requirement to permit-to-purchase and what happened? A
25 percent increase in homicides by firearms.
They work. These laws work, and we ought to make sure they apply to
gun sales in all commercial settings.
My friend across the aisle in his Special Order said that you just
have to look at States where there are tough laws regarding gun
violence to see that they don't work. Well, it is really interesting
because there are just 10 States that supply about half--49 percent--of
the guns that cross State lines before being recovered in crimes.
{time} 1715
Those States account for nearly 21,000 interstate crime guns
recovered in 2009. So people go to the areas where it is easy for them
to access firearms, they buy them, and then they bring them to the
other States and they use them.
[[Page H4996]]
It is not enough just to have a tough law. My home State of
California requires background checks for all gun purchases. It is not
a big deal. I bought a gun over the last break. As you all know, my
friends here know, I am a gun guy. I support the Second Amendment. I
have firearms. I use them. I collect them. I hunt with them.
I bought one over the last break from a very close personal family
friend, yet the law says we still had to get a background check. It
wasn't any heavy lift. I took it to a dealer, they did the background
check, and in 10 days I got my gun.
California is a stricter State than many. Nineteen States go beyond
what the Federal Government requires. The Federal Government requires,
remember, that you have to have a background check if you purchase a
gun at a licensed dealer. California says all guns have to go through a
background check. As I say, it is not a heavy lift.
But Californians can leave our State and they can go to another
State, one of the 34 States that only have the Federal requirement--
they can go to another State, they can go online, they can go to a
newspaper ad, or they can go to a gun show--and they can purchase the
same firearm that they would be prohibited from purchasing if they had
to undergo a background check. We know it happens.
At the State of the Union, when we honored victims of gun violence, a
man from Wisconsin was here because his sister took out a restraining
order on her husband. Her husband tried to buy a gun, and that
restraining order stopped him from being able to buy the gun. Well, he
went home. He went online. He found someone that was selling the same
gun, who wasn't a licensed dealer. He bought that gun. He took it to
the beauty shop where his wife was, and he killed her, and he killed
two other people.
Now, as Mr. Cicilline said, we can't stop every act of gun violence
by passing any bill. And the people that say they don't support the
background check bill because it wouldn't have worked in Mr. Clyburn's
district in Charleston, or it wouldn't have worked in Mr. Perlmutter's
district in the movie theater, or it wouldn't have worked in Orlando at
the Pulse nightclub, they say, well, we only will support a bill that
will work in all of these cases, well, the only bill that will do that
is getting rid of all guns. There is not support on our side of the
aisle for that, and there is not support on the other side of the aisle
for that. It is a disingenuous argument.
Everything that we can do to stop people from being killed by someone
with a gun we should be working on doing. The bills that we are talking
about today are bipartisan bills. You know that, Mr. Speaker. Our bill
has not only bipartisan support, it has 197 coauthors. I don't think
there has ever been a time in the history of Congress that there has
been a gun bill in this House that has had 197 coauthors. That is
really out of the ordinary.
Folks have lined up to support this because they know it is good
public policy. The American people know it is good public policy.
Ninety percent of the American population believe that we should expand
background checks to include all commercial sales. Eighty-five percent
believe that we should enact the no fly, no buy. They say if you are
too dangerous to fly, you should be too dangerous to buy. They are
bipartisan. Both of those measures are pro-Second Amendment. They are
certainly commonsense, and they most certainly have the support of the
majority of the American people.
We should be doing everything we can to pass those bills. We
shouldn't be going home. And I know that sometimes a hyperbole takes
over. I don't for a moment think that every Member in this body is
going home to sit on the beach. I know what most Members do, if not all
Members. We go home and we work in our districts. You are going to do
that. I am going to do that. Mr. Clyburn, Mrs. Beatty, Mr. Cicilline,
we are all going to go home, we are going to meet with our
constituents, and we are going to do our work.
But the point that we are trying to make is we shouldn't leave this
body, we shouldn't leave this House, the people's House, to go home to
do our work there without first passing this gun violence prevention
legislation that is bipartisan, supported by the American people, and
pro-Second Amendment--measures that will do a little bit more to keep
guns away from criminals, terrorists, and the dangerously mentally ill.
Mr. Speaker, we should be doing that. We should be doing that here
today before we leave on this 7-week recess.
Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Clyburn), the distinguished assistant leader.
Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me,
and I thank him so much for doing this Special Order.
I want to begin, first of all, by thanking my colleague on the other
side of the Capitol, Senator Tim Scott, for a tremendous speech he gave
on the floor of the Senate last evening. I thank him so much for
sharing with the American people an issue that has, for some reason,
converged with our overall discussions of gun violence.
Now, tonight, at around 7:30, we are going to have a national
SpeakOut here on the west lawn of the Capitol. We will be speaking out
on this whole issue of gun violence. I am particularly interested in
one part of our effort dealing with background checks.
Now, some have said that background checks legislation that we are
proposing would not have had any impact on most of these issues, if not
all. Well, I beg to differ when it comes to Charleston and the Emanuel
9.
The facts are very clear that the gentleman who purchased the gun
that he used to murder those nine souls doing their Bible study at
Emanuel AME Church June 17 of last year was not eligible by law to have
purchased a gun because of a 72-hour rule that we have in our
background check laws. If you apply to purchase a gun and the
background check is undertaken and it is not completed in 3 days, you
can go back and get the gun, irrespective of whether or not you are
eligible to have it.
Now, thanks to the Government Accountability Office, 2 days ago, they
issued a study, and the study covered a period of 10 years, from 2006
to 2015. Here is what they have revealed. During that 10-year period,
89,000 requests to purchase a gun were denied because of domestic
abuse; however, 6,700 were purchased by people who were ineligible
because of that 3-day rule.
Now, over 90 percent of the people who apply to purchase a weapon
have their background checks completed within 2 days, but there is that
10 percent that require additional scrutiny. We don't know whether or
not people intentionally give the wrong information. If someone really
wanted to curtail the law and knows what the law is, that person could
very well give the wrong address, give the wrong middle initial, do
something to cause the background check to be extended beyond the 3-day
period.
The gentleman who purchased the gun in the case of the Emanuel 9, it
was an interesting confluence of mistakes. It had nothing to do with
the bureaucracy. For some strange reason, when he was arrested for his
problem, rather than taking him to the Columbia jail, they took him to
the West Columbia jail. So, when they looked for his record, they
looked for the record in Columbia. But for some strange reason, the
record was across the river in West Columbia. By the time they detected
what the problem was, the 3 days had expired and he was able to
purchase a gun.
Within days of that purchase, he went online and he studied the
history of Emanuel AME Church, the church where Denmark Vesey organized
an insurrection in 1822 in the basement of Emanuel Church. He looked at
that history. He saw Emanuel AME Church as one of the most historical
African American churches not just in the State of South Carolina, but
in the country, and he targeted that church.
He went there, invited himself into the Bible study with these
blessed souls, and sat with them for an hour. Then he got up, took out
the gun that he had bought, which he was not eligible to purchase, and
began to murder them systematically. One woman, Ms. Sanders, is here in
Washington and will be here with us this evening, lost her son, her
aunt, and a cousin. The reason she is still with us today is because
she played dead under a table while covering up her little
grandchildren. She
[[Page H4997]]
watched her son walk up to the shooter and say: Why are you doing this?
We mean you no harm.
But he said: I have got to do it.
Why?
Because I want to start a race war.
Well, he did not start a race war. This whole country saw what
forgiveness was all about. Within 48 hours, these family members, these
survivors, were in a judicial courtroom. They looked at the
perpetrator, and one after the other looked at him and said: I forgive
you.
Well, I am appreciative of my constituents for forgiving, but I
believe, as their representative here in this body, it is incumbent
upon me to do whatever I can--and, hopefully, we will be joined by
others in this body--to close this loophole. Let's make sure that gun
purchases are not made until the background check is completed. If it
takes 4 days or 5 days, what is that all about? What we must do is make
sure that demented criminals and domestic abusers are not allowed to
purchase guns because we know from history that they mean no good when
they do.
Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his eloquent
words.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs.
Beatty).
Mrs. BEATTY. Mr. Speaker, first let me thank my good friend and
colleague from the First District of Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for
leading tonight's Special Order hour on the Republicans' decision to
leave for 52 days without taking any action to address the gun violence
epidemic in this country.
{time} 1730
Mr. Speaker, as I sat here this evening, listening to my colleague on
the other side of the aisle repeatedly talking about this
administration and how this administration's work had brought great
harm to this America that we live in, well, Mr. Speaker, tonight, as I
sit here and listen to my colleagues and to the great history lesson
that we just received from Congressman Clyburn in his reminding us of
all the things that happened with the Charleston 9, I reflect on just
the other day when four Black men went on national TV--not elected
officials, not scholars in the world that we represent, but athletes
who stood, dressed in black--who were there to honor another athlete,
the great Muhammad Ali.
Those four young Black men, with young minds, decided that they would
take their time on national TV--unrehearsed, unscripted by folks like
you and me, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to share, just very briefly, what Carmelo Anthony said
when he came to the podium.
``Tonight, we cannot ignore the reality of the current state of this
America we live in. The events of the past week have put a spotlight on
injustice and the distrust and anger that plagues so many of us.''
Mr. Speaker, he said: ``The system is broken. The problems are not
new, and the racial divide is definitely not new, but the urgency to
create change is at an all-time high.''
Then Chris Paul followed him and said: ``We stand here tonight,
accepting our role in uniting communities to be the change we need to
see.''
Now, think about that--to go from distrust, Mr. Speaker, to trust and
have this young athlete speak like we should be speaking, as Democrats
and Republicans, in talking about change.
Do you know why they were saying this, Mr. Speaker?
It is because innocent lives are being taken because we don't have
simple gun laws, because we can't close the loop. Certainly we should
have the intellect to understand that if you can't fly, you can't buy.
When I listen to my colleagues say that we have not brought before
this House laws that we can implement, that is not my responsibility as
a Member of this Congress; it is our responsibility. It is not the
Democrats' responsibility to do this. It is not the Black men's of the
Congressional Black Caucus or the Hispanic men's of their caucus or the
Democrats'. Mr. Speaker, we are better than this. It is our united
responsibility.
When we stand here and make a joke of Black Lives Matter, let me tell
you, Mr. Speaker, Black lives do matter--but blue lives matter, and all
lives matter.
If that mother, like the mother that I am bringing from my Third
Congressional District tonight, tells the story of her 13-year-old
daughter who was sitting in her kitchen as her windows were riddled
with gun bullets that killed that child, that matters to her.
Do you think the wife of that murdered police officer doesn't value
that blue White life as much?
When these young folks come here tonight, many of them representing
Black Lives Matter, they will come as these four athletes did on TV the
other night. It is because they feel the pain, and they don't have an
outlet, they don't have a place. They could march anywhere, but they
are marching at the United States Capitol.
Do you know why?
They are coming here hoping for hope. They are coming here hoping for
leadership. They are coming here hoping that we will unite one another
and bring that trust.
Let me now tell you what the next speaker, Dwayne Wade said. ``The
racial profiling has to stop. The shoot-to-kill mentality has to stop.
Not seeing the value of Black and Brown bodies has to stop.''
Then let me tell you, as he ended with ``enough is enough'' and, ``As
athletes, we challenge you, America,'' then LeBron James, from my great
State of Ohio, came to the microphone and said: ``We all feel helpless
and frustrated by the violence, but that is not acceptable. It's time
to look in the mirror and ask ourselves: What are we doing to create
change?''
He knew that night that that was not what he was there to do, but he
said it was his legacy that he wanted to talk about, and he wanted to
use that moment in time for a call to action.
Mr. Speaker, I come with that same call to action tonight. I come to
say to you that you should be better than what we are doing.
I am not pleased that it is empty on this side of the aisle. Mr.
Speaker, I want America to know that I came here tonight willing to
stand up and to talk to the thousands of folks who will come with that
pain, with that anger. I want them to know that, as Democrats, we are
here today because we know we can be so much better. We are not asking
for a lot. We are asking for four simple bills. I won't walk you
through them because you have heard them, Mr. Speaker. You have heard
my colleagues repeatedly today through 1-minutes, through 5-minutes,
through a Special Order hour, come and ask for help.
I don't know what more we can do tonight, but as you go home, I ask
you to think about those lives that were taken, whether it was an
innocent, young boy, a Trayvon Martin, a Tamir Rice, a Jordan Davis, or
a Sandra Bland, whether it were those children at Newtown, whether it
was someone in a theater or on a football field or in a restaurant,
whether it was in Minnesota or in Baton Rouge or, yes, whether it was
the Emanuel nine in South Carolina, or whether it were those innocent
police officers in Dallas.
I will sleep well tonight, Mr. Speaker, and I want America to know
that I will sleep well tonight because I came here to unite the
communities, to unite Democrats and Republicans. I want America to know
that I am talking to an empty audience of seats on the other side of
the aisle because they went home.
I say to you: America deserves better. The innocent families who lost
their loved ones deserve better. Yet, we are trapped here with the
inactivity of Congress. We deserve to do more for our communities.
Mr. CICILLINE. I thank the gentlewoman for her eloquent words. I
appreciate the passion she has brought to this not only tonight, but
throughout the week and the last many weeks.
I am particularly proud, Mr. Speaker, of the leadership of our
caucus. From the very first night when we came to the floor to attempt
to break through the logjam of inaction by our Republican colleagues,
it really galvanized our caucus. It galvanized the country that,
likewise, is demanding action, demanding that we enact commonsense gun
safety legislation.
We heard eloquent words from so many members of our caucus through
those 26 hours; but so much leadership was provided by the leaders of
our caucus, who, in the past several weeks, have used every occasion,
every possible opportunity, to force a vote on
[[Page H4998]]
two commonsense gun safety provisions--to keep guns out of the hands of
suspected terrorists and universal background checks--in amendments, in
attempting to attach it to bills, in motions to recommit, in every way
that they could.
I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our distinguished
Democratic whip, who has been a great champion on this issue and who
has been a great leader in the fight for responsible gun safety
legislation.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank
him for taking this Special Order.
I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for that eloquent and passionate
plea to put negligence aside, to put inaction aside, and to understand
that in this House, we have an opportunity to take action.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard to think of LeBron James' feeling helpless--
one of the greatest athletes of our time and, perhaps, of all time. He
is an extraordinarily powerful individual. For him to stand and say, I
am frustrated and I feel helpless, in part, that is because he has sent
people to Congress. He and 320 million Americans have sent people to
Congress to respond and to keep them safe.
Can we keep them perfectly safe?
We cannot.
John Kennedy was speaking to a group of parents of children with
disabilities. He stood before them and said: ``Although these children
have been the victims of fate, they shall not be the victims of our
neglect.''
Mr. Speaker, today, tomorrow, the week after, and for months to come,
we do not know how many people will be victims of today's neglect;
victims because we took a walk today rather than action on this floor
of the people's House. We will never know the price that we will pay,
but we surely know there will be a price.
Speaker Ryan, upon taking the Speaker's gavel, called for a return to
regular order, openness, and transparency; and I would like to read his
quote because it was a good quote.
He said: ``We need to return to regular order.''
Then he said: ``We will not duck the tough issues.''
Today we ducked. Today we said we are not going to apply our ability
to take action. We are going to go home.
The American people, Mr. Speaker, ought to know that we weren't
scheduled to go home until tomorrow night, and the American people
ought to know that the President of the United States asked us, some 5
months ago, to apply resources so as to protect the public health from
the Zika plague. So not only have we not dealt with gun violence, but
we have not dealt with two simple but profound, commonsense actions.
Mr. Speaker, I could walk across to that rostrum where Republicans
usually speak. I am at the rostrum where Democrats usually speak.
{time} 1745
There ought to be a rostrum in the middle where we speak not as
Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans, as parents, as
husbands, as wives, as neighbors, as friends to protect and preserve
not only the Constitution of the United States but their lives and
their future.
Congresswoman Beatty said it so well, ``Black lives matter,'' and
then she added quickly, ``Blue lives matter.'' And of course she meant
those who protect us and are sworn to put themselves at risk so that we
may not be at risk. We lost five of them and we lost the young man in
Minnesota and a not-quite-so-young man but another man in Louisiana
just these past few days.
Mr. Speaker, you said, ``We will not duck the tough issues.'' We
don't think this is a tough issue, but maybe some people do. We think
this is commonsense reason to pass a bill that says, if you are too
dangerous to fly on an airplane in America, you are too dangerous for
us to sell you a gun.
If we accept the premise that we ought to have background checks,
which we do, then those ought to be not in just some cases but in every
case so that we are not keeping people safe just in some instances but
in every instance.
``We will not duck the tough issues.'' The Speaker then said, ``We
will take them head-on.''
We have been asking now for years and certainly very directly for a
number of weeks now to bring these bills to the floor that provide for
universal background checks and for protecting people from people who
are dangerous and who would buy guns but are too dangerous to fly on
our airplanes.
That is all we are asking. We are not even asking that it pass. We
will vote for it. We hope a large number of our colleagues will vote
for it. Because I tell you, the American people are speaking from that
middle mike, which does not exist. But their voice in the middle here
is 90 percent of them saying, ``Please, Congress, do these actions.''
The Speaker went on to say, ``We should not hide our disagreements.''
The American people don't have much of an agreement; it is nine to one.
``We should not hide our disagreements,'' he said. ``We should
embrace them. We have nothing to fear from honest disagreements
honestly stated.''
Bring them to the floor, Mr. Speaker.
Tonight, two friends of mine, Wendy Edmonds and Bobbe Frasier, will
be with us tonight at 7:30. They lost Sylvia Frasier, their sister, at
the United States Navy Yard, just a few blocks from where we stand, by
someone who essentially invaded the Navy Yard and killed a significant
number of people.
But the Congress has gone home. The leadership believes there is no
more business left to do before going home to their districts for the
next 7 weeks.
Tell that to the people of Flint, who 24 months after the lead was
discovered which gave such danger to their children and damaged their
children--tell that to them. They have been waiting eagerly for
Congress to take up legislation providing them with critical resources
to recover from the lead poisoning in their water supply. They shall
not be the victims of our neglect, but they are. We have gone home.
Tell that to millions of Americans in Puerto Rico and across this
country who are at risk this summer of exposure to the Zika virus. Tell
that to the millions of families who have been affected by gun violence
and are looking to Congress to enact commonsense gun safety reforms.
So I tell my Republican colleagues, the Speaker, the majority leader,
there is much work to be done right now. It is irresponsible that the
majority would continue to obstruct and delay any action on these three
pressing national crises. Instead, we should be remaining in Washington
until they are addressed.
We saw the other night a bill pass from conference with no debate in
just a few minutes--a major piece of legislation. Time is not the
problem. Commitment is the problem.
Democrats, as Congresswoman Beatty said so eloquently, are ready to
stay here and do the hard work. And I am asking the Speaker and the
majority leader to commit to doing the same.
The American people expect us to do our jobs, not just shrug and go
home. We owe the American people that duty and that action. Let us
vote.
Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to yield to the
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Democratic
leader. I thank her again for her extraordinary leadership on this
issue.
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Cicilline) has
been such a leader on this issue. He was a leader in the sit-in that
happened a few weeks ago on the floor of the House, I can attest
personally. I bore witness to his staying here all night, for 25 hours
straight.
He organized us on the steps of the Capitol on Tuesday evening, the
1-month anniversary--bad, sad observance of the 1 month since Orlando,
where a hate crime was committed against young people gathered for a
night of enjoyment, instead to have the end of their life occur. And
why? Because of a hate crime. And why? Because we don't have
commonsense gun laws in our country.
He also organized us all day in scores of 1-minutes on behalf of
House Democrats. But I want to also thank him for putting this Special
Order together in preparation for the event that we will have on the
steps of the Capitol later this evening.
I associate myself with the remarks of our distinguished whip, Mr.
Hoyer, when we say to the Republicans, why have you left here?
Congresswoman Beatty has the same message. What
[[Page H4999]]
more important thing do our Republican colleagues have to do than to be
in session, to do their job, for us all to do our job for the American
people?
We should be here to do our job on Zika, which the President over 4
months ago requested funding to fight Zika, and now it is spreading in
our country.
We should be here for funding for opioids. We passed a wonderful
bill--good policy, but no funding; therefore, not effective.
We should be here to pass the funding for opioids and Flint,
Michigan. What more important thing do you have to do, my colleagues on
the Republican side of the aisle, than to meet the needs of the
children of Flint, Michigan?
Here we are, continuing to have our conversation about commonsense
gun violence protection.
I want to quote from President Lyndon Johnson. In the aftermath of
the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, just weeks after the fatal
shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr., and only a few years after
President John F. Kennedy was shot, President Johnson pressed Congress
to enact gun control legislation that he sent to Capitol Hill years
earlier. He had sent it after the Kennedy assassination.
LBJ ordered all of his staff and urged allies in Congress to act
swiftly. Here is what he said that was as relevant now as it was then.
President Lyndon Johnson, following the deaths of Martin Luther King
and Robert Kennedy, said: ``We only have 2 weeks, maybe only 10 days,
before the gun lobby gets organized. We've got to beat the NRA into the
offices of Members of Congress.''
Decades. This has been going on for decades. When a President of the
United States, after the assassination of a President; an icon,
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.; Senator Robert Kennedy--well,
actually he was a candidate for President at the time, Senator Kennedy
was. ``We've got to beat the NRA into the offices of Members of
Congress.'' Well, obviously, we haven't, because they sort of live
there. They sort of live there.
And when he signed the watered-down version of the bill he proposed,
he said, ``The voices that blocked these safeguards were not the voices
of an aroused nation. They were the voices of a powerful gun lobby, a
gun lobby that has prevailed for the moment in an election year.''
Sound familiar?
LBJ went on to say, ``We have been through a great deal of anguish
these last few months and these last few years--too much anguish to
forget so quickly. So now we must complete the task which this long-
needed legislation begins.''
Here we are decades later, still recognizing the fact that the
National Rifle Association, the gun lobby, has so much power over
Members of Congress. It has so much power over their political
survival, some of our colleagues think.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker: What is more important, the political
survival of Members of Congress beholden to the gun lobby or the
survival of little kindergarten students in Newtown, Connecticut? What
is more important, the political survival of Members of Congress or the
personal survival of members gathered in church in South Carolina, or
young people gathered for an evening of fun in Orlando--the list goes
on and on--or our dear police officers killed in Dallas.
What is it? How do you explain it to people, except to say there is a
large element of cowardice. There is a large element of putting
people's own political survival over the oath of office that we take to
protect the American people.
Excuse me. This is so emotional.
I salute my colleague Congresswoman Beatty for her very passionate
and intellectual statement that she made in recognizing the role of
athletes. I am very proud of the Golden State Warriors. They have long
been involved in this, as has the NBA and the players that she
mentioned. This was another venue for them to speak out. They have been
eloquent on the subject for a while.
I salute my colleague Mr. Cicilline, not only for his work on gun
issues, but on hate crimes as well, because that was a hate crime in
Orlando.
Mr. Clyburn is going to be outside on the steps of the Capitol with a
large crowd of people so we can listen to the stories of those
affected. If only our colleagues would open their hearts and their
minds and not have a tin ear to the voices of the families, listen to
the families.
One of our own colleagues, Congressman Bobby Rush of Illinois, he and
his family are survivors of the death of their son. When he tells the
story of how he learned of his son being shot but then of his son
passing, it is so eloquent and so compelling. And he talks about the
shriek, the cry, the scream of a mother who has just found out that her
child is dead from a gunshot.
How much of this can we take? It is always impressive, I have to say,
to witness the degree of tolerance that our colleagues have for the
pain of others. How much pain do people have to suffer for people to
hear, to learn, to judge?
Was it George Bernard Shaw who said the sign of a truly intelligent
person is that he is informed by statistics? The statistics are
overwhelming: 91 a day; over 1,000 mass murders, which is defined as 4
or more people being slaughtered in 1 incident--all of that since
Newtown.
{time} 1800
I know my time is drawing short, but I will just say this: these are
statistics. More important than that, they are human lives.
How many more human lives? How many shrieks of mothers learning--and
dads as well.
He spoke of hearing his wife's shriek; the piercing sound of a
mother's scream.
I heard one of the mothers from Orlando when she was suspicious that
her son might have been killed. She said: I don't know. We don't have
any evidence, but nobody has seen him. He isn't at the hospital. I am
afraid I have become a member of the club, the club of women, moms who
have lost their children. It is a terrible club to be a member of, and
I want to speak out against gun violence so that there aren't more moms
added to the club.
But that doesn't seem to resonate with our colleagues. They don't
even give the courtesy of attendance to hear the concerns that people
have.
Is it indifference? Do they not know or do they not care? Or is it
some combination?
Whatever it is, it is a disgrace to our oath of office to protect the
American people.
Be assured of this, be assured of this: we are not going away. You
will see us. You will see the faces of those moms, all the
organizations that have come together, the millions of people, the high
percentages, 85, 90 percent of the American people of all parties and
no parties who support the legislation that we are asking for. We are
not going away until we have commonsense gun violence prevention laws
passed in our country to save lives, to save lives. That is the
challenge we offer to our Republican colleagues.
Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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