[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 57 (Wednesday, March 29, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H1536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     AMERICAN GUN VIOLENCE EPIDEMIC

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
New Jersey (Mrs. Watson Coleman) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today heartbroken by 
perpetual tragedy and outraged by perpetual inaction.
  On Monday, a school shooting in Nashville left three 9-year-old 
students and three adults dead. The next day, when asked about 
solutions to the American gun violence epidemic, the majority leader of 
the House of Representatives offered his solution: prayers.
  Let's be clear, thoughts and prayers don't save a single solitary 
life. Yet, after more than 130 mass shootings in less than 3 months, 
the Republican Party has still chosen to allow our children to be 
murdered in their classrooms.
  To be clear, this is a choice. After every mass shooting, Republicans 
choose to offer empty thoughts and prayers instead of commonsense 
solutions, and then they turn around and cash their NRA checks.
  I have spent my entire career in public service and every Sunday in 
church. I will never understand how a human being, let alone one 
elected to serve others, would willingly endanger the lives of their 
children for a little bit of money. Frankly, it makes me sick to my 
stomach.

  Every American--Republican, Democrat, and Independent--wants to live 
in a country where they don't have to fear that dropping off their 
child at the bus stop may be the last time they see them alive.
  Too many of us, however, accept this dystopian reality. The cycle of 
murder, devastation, and inaction has become so commonplace that most 
mass shootings don't even make the headlines. Outside of war zones, no 
country on Earth so consistently chooses to accept so much death and 
terror.
  I certainly choose not to accept it. I choose to take necessary 
action to curb the scourge of gun violence in our country. I choose to 
fight for universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, and 
whatever it takes to protect our communities.
  I dream of a safer America. I choose to keep fighting until it is no 
longer just a dream. Words mean nothing. Action is what we need.

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