[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 39 (Thursday, February 27, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H1244-H1246]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              CONGRESS NEEDS LEADERS, NOT GUN LOBBY SHILLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Porter) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Ms. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, as Members of Congress, we have promised to 
serve the American people, and this means keeping American families 
safe and secure. But for too long, Congress has put fealty to the 
special interest of the gun lobby ahead of our safety.
  I cannot afford to live in fear of special interests. Why? Because 
every single day when I send my three children off to school, I live in 
fear for their safety; because I have seen the pain on the faces of 
those parents whose children never came home from school, the parents 
who hugged their children good-bye in the morning, never knowing it 
would be for the last time; because no parent should ever have to mourn 
a child lost to preventable gun violence; and because, as your Member 
of Congress, I have the power to fight for change.
  This is the power that Congress has, and this is why 1 year ago, we 
passed landmark legislation to reduce gun violence in this country.
  Under current law, only federally licensed vendors must conduct 
background checks, but this creates loopholes for private sellers. This 
means that there are no background checks on private sales, including 
gun shows and online transactions.
  The Bipartisan Background Checks Act closes this loophole and will 
ensure that nearly all gun sales are run through the National Criminal 
Background Check System.
  This legislation is common sense. In fact, two former GOP Congressmen 
wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in support of the legislation. 
They said: ``This bill doesn't take away anyone's guns.'' It represents 
``a critical step in the right direction at a time when more and more 
Americans are touched by gun violence.''
  This is a clear, commonsense, American solution that is now being 
held hostage by Senator Mitch McConnell, the President, and the gun 
lobby.
  And this is a uniquely American issue. No other country experiences 
the same epidemic of gun violence.
  In fact, guns are the second-leading cause of death for American 
children and teens; nearly 1,700 are killed by guns every year. In my 
home State of California, an average of 246 children and teens die from 
guns every year.
  Since the beginning of 2014 in California, over 14,000 people, 
including, heartbreakingly, 120 law enforcement officers, have been 
injured or killed due to gun violence.
  Mr. Speaker, 47 of those people hurt or killed were in my district in 
Orange County, the 45th. We have lost 34 members of our community in 
just 4 years to gun violence.

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  Orange County families have made their feelings heard, time and 
again, that they want us to strengthen gun violence prevention laws. I 
am standing here as proof that Orange County wants action on gun 
reform. Keeping our families safe is at the heart of our community's 
values.
  I want to share a story of one Orange County family with my 
colleagues here in Congress. This is a story of a family who 
experienced loss from gun violence and, yet, found the strength to 
dedicate their lives to making sure that others don't experience 
similar tragedies.
  Mary Leigh and Charlie Blek from Orange County have fought tirelessly 
for commonsense gun legislation in California. Their son, Matthew Blek, 
was only 21 years old when he was shot and killed while visiting New 
York City. He was a victim of armed robbery by teens using a small 
handgun, also known as a junk gun.

  In memory of their son, the Bleks founded Orange County Citizens for 
the Prevention of Gun Violence in 1995. For 5 long, hard-fought years, 
they advocated for safety regulations that would rid California of the 
type of gun that killed their son, and they succeeded.
  California used to produce 80 percent of the junk guns for the 
Nation. California no longer produces these junk guns and has enacted 
safety standards for handguns.
  Still today, the Bleks are vigilant in preventing the gun lobby from 
finding a way to sell dangerous handguns in California. The Bleks now 
lead the Orange County chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun 
Violence. I am personally very grateful for their efforts. No family 
should ever have to go through what the Bleks suffered, but too many in 
our own communities have. And because the Senate has yet to act, 
nothing has changed.
  It has been 1 year since we passed H.R. 8. It has been almost 2 years 
since the Parkland school shooting, and over 7 years since the Sandy 
Hook shooting. And until this Congress, there has not been any change 
coming out of Washington.
  Time is running out. Congress has the power to stop more people--more 
children--from dying from gun violence, and we must act.
  Now more than ever, we need the American people to insist that our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle stand up to the gun lobby and 
stand up to join in the fight to reduce gun violence. We all have a 
duty to be leaders, not shills for the gun lobby, not cowards afraid to 
lose an A-rating. Our children deserve our courage.

                              {time}  1530

  Our children deserve leaders who will fight to ensure that families 
are safe at school, in parks, at the movies, and at concerts.
  As your Member of Congress, as a mother, and as a member of the 
Orange County community, I will never back down from this fight. I will 
not be bought, and I will not be silenced by the gun lobby or by the 
President.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentlewoman for anchoring 
this extremely important intervention and Special Order Hour.
  I wasn't really sure whether or not I would have the strength to 
stand before you today because we have had yet another mass shooting 
just in the last day. It seems like this is a daily event.
  It happened, unfortunately, in my own hometown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 
When these things happen, you try to distance yourself from them. You 
say to yourself, you know, it doesn't have an impact on me personally.
  But, unfortunately, of the five victims, I knew one of them very 
well. I have known him since 1992, an immigrant, who was a father, a 
husband, a grandfather, a wonderful person who left the Soviet Union to 
come and seek a better life for him and his family, a life of freedom, 
only to be met with death.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been a year, today, I believe, that we sent H.R. 
8 over to Mitch McConnell's graveyard, while our constituents are 
planning on putting their loved ones in the grave.
  It is Sandy Hook. It is Columbine; Newtown; Oak Creek, which is 
adjacent to my district; Florida, the Pulse mass killing; Parkland; 
churches, Mother Emanuel Church, the Sikh Temple; movie houses; for 
God's sake, an elementary school. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to 
hide.
  What I have come to learn too quickly is that it will have an impact 
on you personally, as it happened to me last night.
  Yesterday, my friend went to work, and today his family is gathering 
to put him to rest. Of course, my heart aches for them because I knew 
them, but I knew all of the victims of gun shootings. And I say: How 
long is how long?
  It is the reality in this country. I know people make the argument, 
Mr. Speaker, that, oh, we need to do something about mental illness.
  There is mental illness all over the world, but there are not these 
shootings because there is not the easy access to guns. And we ought to 
use the tools in our toolkit to be able to vet people before they 
receive these guns.
  How terrible is my restimulated memory of Zina Daniel, a constituent 
of mine who provided services in the spa industry. Her estranged ex-
husband put out an ad saying: I need a gun, and I need the gun right 
now.
  He was sold the gun in a fast-food parking lot--no vetting, no 
background check, just sold a gun. All of the indicators were there 
that he was up to no good: I want a gun, any kind of gun, any caliber, 
and I want it now.
  That is how Zina Daniel and her coworkers lost their lives; Zina 
Daniel, leaving children on this Earth to be cared for, with no mother.
  While I don't know the circumstances of the weapon last night, I can 
tell you that we see our citizens with military-type weapons, nothing 
that can be justified for the many hunters we have in Wisconsin, 
weapons that mutilate people and butcher them and mangle the bodies of 
children, disfiguring people so badly that they can't be identified 
when their parents show up at the morgue.
  There are stories of these AR-15s brutalizing these bodies so 
terribly that it is just a second source of trauma for parents to see 
their deceased children in this condition, children as young as 6 years 
old, barely at the dawn of life, dead from gunfire.
  Please do not let their cries go on unheard. We need the Senate to 
pass comprehensive gun legislation yesterday because one death is too 
many.
  I speak for the students who lead protests all over this country 
demanding more.
  I speak for the moms who diligently march and protest every single 
day demanding more.
  I speak for all of the citizens in our districts who have wept too 
many times.
  I speak for those children who don't feel like they will get an 
opportunity to grow up and to have a voice, those who cannot vote, and 
they are depending on the adults, adults like Mitch McConnell, to act.
  I pray that Mitch McConnell does not experience the pain and agony 
that I am experiencing today, having to get on that airplane and go and 
face my friend since 1992 and her children in the wake of this. I hope 
that he will rest tonight, as I will not be able to rest tonight.
  Perhaps this is just one person who died, just five people in 
Milwaukee who died, but this was a very important person to my friend. 
This was a part of our community. This was a part of our commercial 
industry. He was a very important part of the MillerCoors family. He 
was our neighbor, and he was a human being.
  We are calling upon the humanity of you, Senator McConnell, to 
explain yourself to this man's wife, to his two daughters, to his 
grandchildren why we can't have a sensible background check piece of 
legislation.
  Someone that I loved very much is on their way to the graveyard. 
Please dig up our legislation from your graveyard, Senator McConnell.
  Ms. PORTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from 
Wisconsin, for her powerful words in this time of tragedy in her 
district. I thank her for bringing the voice of those we lost to the 
United States Congress. I really appreciate her passion and compassion.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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