[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H768-H769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 HONORING GUN VIOLENCE SURVIVORS' WEEK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Georgia (Mrs. McBath) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. McBATH. Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor of Gun Violence Survivors 
Week because I, too, am a survivor.
  This week, just a month into the new year, there will have been more 
gun deaths in the United States than our peer countries will experience 
in an entire year--one month.
  I wear black today. I wear black all week long to stand for every 
survivor, every victim, every family that mourns the unnecessary gun 
deaths that happen each and every single day.
  I met earlier this week with Mary Miller-Strobel, whose brother, Ben, 
was a combat veteran suffering from depression and PTSD. Ben had lost 
30 pounds after his tour. Returning home, his father asked him about 
his weight loss. Ben replied that he couldn't eat, and he said: ``It's 
just so hard out there, Dad. It smells like death.''
  Ben was seeking treatment at a local VA hospital, but his family 
continued to worry about him. They worried that, in a moment of 
desperation, Ben might end his own life.
  Mary and her father drove to every gun store in their area. At each 
store, they showed photos of Ben, pleading with them not to sell him a 
gun.
  Ben Miller died by suicide. He used a gun that he bought at a local 
gun store.
  Too often we are told that we must accept these tragedies. We are 
told that, instead of changing our laws, we must have more active 
shooter drills, more first graders coming home with tears in their 
eyes, 6-year-olds asked to decide for themselves whether they are more 
likely to survive by hiding in a closet or if they should rush the 
gunman; more mothers reading messages from their children as they are 
locked inside a school and they are pleading: Mom, if I don't make it, 
I love you, and I appreciate everything that you have done for me; more 
vigils each and every day for those that we continue to lose.
  Too often, we are told that we must accept these tragedies. I refuse 
to accept that. Millions of Americans across the country refuse to 
accept that. This Congress should refuse to accept that.
  We refuse to accept that, because we have passed bipartisan 
legislation that will help save lives, legislation like the Bipartisan 
Background Checks Act, a commonsense bill that will keep guns away from 
those who should not have them.

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  We have passed H.R. 1112, the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019, 
which would close the Charleston loophole.
  We have passed a bill that gives the CDC and the NIH $25 million to 
study gun violence, the first of its kind in over 20 years.
  I have even introduced a bill that would give loved ones and law 
enforcement more tools to keep guns away from those who are a danger to 
themselves or to others; tools that may have helped Mary save her 
brother, Ben's life.
  With every unnecessary shooting, we continue to feel the weight of 
this injustice; and I personally know that sense of injustice.
  When my son, Jordan, was killed, I found myself asking America, how 
could you allow this to happen to my child, my family, to my Jordan? 
And after Parkland, I knew that this country needed to stand up and to 
do something about it.
  I knew that I had something that I had to do, and I knew that I 
needed to stand up for families like mine in Marietta, Georgia, who are 
terrified that their children will not come home from school, and they 
are terrified of being me.
  So I made a promise to my community that I would act. And I promised 
that I would take all the love and the support and protection that I 
had given to my child and use it to serve the American people. I 
promised I would always be a mother on a mission to save the lives of 
children from across America, children like my son.
  During this Gun Violence Survivors Week, I pray that we all remember 
that this is in our hands. Families like Mary's, children graduating 
from high school, communities in Charleston, in Columbine, in Parkland, 
in Sandy Hook, in Dayton, in El Paso, in Las Vegas, in the hundreds of 
places where shooters and shootings don't even make the news. Their 
lives are in our hands.
  I thank my colleagues, and survivors, and volunteers, and advocates 
across this country for their tireless work to protect our families.
  May God bless us all in this fight to save American lives.

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