[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.

                          ____________________