[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 8, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H5340-H5341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ENDING GUN VIOLENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Minnesota (Ms. Omar) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. OMAR. Madam Speaker, it has been 23 years since Columbine. It has 
been 15 years since Virginia Tech, 10 years since Sandy Hook, 4 years 
since Parkland. We have offered prayer and thoughts for years with no 
real action.
  It has been 15 days since the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 
19 children were massacred. One of the students, a 10-year-old girl, 
survived because she covered herself in the blood of her dead 
classmate.
  We have trained kids to hide under their tables. We have trained 
teachers to barricade their doors. We have trained schools to lock down 
their campuses. Now, are we going to train kids to cover themselves 
with their friend's blood in order to survive?
  When are we going to understand the common denominator here is not 
just criminals but making it easy for criminals to access deadly 
weapons?
  Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada all dealt with 
mass shootings, but there was a national outcry, and they put in place 
restrictions to stop mass carnage from happening again.
  We don't have mental health issues more than any other country. What 
we do have here are politicians who lack the moral courage to stand up 
to the NRA. We have a society that is not willing to stand up to 
protect its citizens, especially its most vulnerable,

[[Page H5341]]

which is our beautiful children. We have to be better than that.
  We also must remember, Madam Speaker, it is not just mass shootings. 
It is white supremacists in Buffalo who massacre elders. It is gangs 
who carnage our neighborhoods, who allow for a 3-year-old in my 
district to get mowed down by gunfire.
  The problem is guns. The problem is our colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle. We have to have the courage to stand up to them and to 
stand up for our country.


                     Protecting Individual Freedoms

  Ms. OMAR. Madam Speaker, Roe v. Wade is fundamentally about privacy. 
Fifty, 60, 70 years ago, in order for women to access abortion care, 
they had to go to back-alley clinics and use wire hangers.
  In 1973, it was decided that women have a right to make their own 
decisions about their bodies. We have to be a country that refuses to 
go back. We have to be a country that refuses to have women in my 
generation and the generation before enjoy more freedoms than my 
daughter's generation and the next.
  Republicans will say they are the party of freedom and liberty, but 
they are the party that doesn't believe in liberty and freedom for 
women. Democrats are the party that is protecting your freedom and 
expanding liberty, which is why we introduced and passed the Women's 
Health Protection Act because codifying Roe v. Wade into law is 
essentially about protecting the freedoms for individuals to make their 
own private decisions about their healthcare.
  If you stand for freedom, if you stand for liberty, join us and 
reject an extremist, fascist, misogynistic, backward party that wants 
to take us back to the stone age where men dictated what women do with 
their bodies. Help us exist in a country where our values of uplifting 
and advancing the rights of individuals still stand.


                        Rampant Food Insecurity

  Ms. OMAR. Madam Speaker, one in six children in the United States 
doesn't have enough food to eat. It is unconscionable that we allow 16 
percent of our children here in this country to go hungry.
  Right now, Mitch McConnell and Republicans are blocking funding to 
continue the school waivers that allow for children to continue to eat 
in schools. Our inability to get these waivers and feed millions of 
children who are food insecure is inexcusable.
  Globally, there are 276 million people facing food insecurity around 
the world, with countries in the Horn of Africa teetering on the edge 
of famine. We have an opportunity to get people on board and rally 
around those who are in need and starving.

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