[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 7, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H1451]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          DEMAND SERIOUS TREATMENT OF THE GUN VIOLENCE PROBLEM

  (Mr. RASKIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, one of the great things about our job is we 
have all these wonderful young people come to us from all over the 
world. And in school, they read about the social contract. They read 
John Locke. They read Thomas Hobbes. They read Rousseau. The whole 
premise of the social contract is that we will be safer in civil 
society together than we would be if we stay in the state of nature, 
which Hobbes described as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
  But we are failing the elemental test and obligation of civil 
government because we are not keeping our people safe when a teenager 
can access an AR-15, go into a school, and assassinate at point-blank 
range 17 teachers and students.
  And what are we doing here in Congress?
  Nothing. Here in the House of Representatives, we have not had a 
single hearing on gun violence. We have not had a single hearing on a 
universal criminal and mental background check, which is supported by 
97 percent of the American people. It is almost unanimous, and we can't 
even have a hearing about it.
  We are demanding a hearing, and we are demanding, with the young 
people who are coming to Washington on Saturday, March 24, serious 
treatment of the gun violence problem which does not belong in a civil 
society.

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