[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 38 (Monday, March 5, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H1356]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          OUR NATION IS IN THE GRIP OF A GUN VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC

  (Mr. TONKO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, our Nation is in the grip of a gun violence 
epidemic; yet, even in the face of national tragedy, Congress has 
failed again and again to act.
  On January 10, 2018, a student in Denison, Texas, fired a weapon that 
belonged to an adviser, thinking it wasn't loaded. That same day, a 
middle school student in Maplewood, Minnesota, fatally injured himself 
with a gun in a school bathroom.
  On January 23, 2018, a 15-year-old student in Benton, Kentucky, 
opened fire with a handgun, killing two people and injuring 18.
  On February 14, Valentine's Day, 2018, a 19-year-old gunman killed 14 
students and 3 faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 
in Parkland, Florida, using a semiautomatic weapon.
  Two months into 2018, its tragedies are too numerous to list.
  For too long we have allowed NRA's gun industry lobbyists to pick and 
choose our guns laws.

  I say: No more.
  Students across America are demanding Congress enact commonsense gun 
violence prevention, including universal background checks, limits on 
high-capacity magazines, and a ban on the sale of assault weapons 
designed not for a hunting field, but for a battlefield.
  We must not fail them again.

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