[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16947]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               GUN VIOLENCE ECLIPSES FISCAL CLIFF DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. It's difficult to focus on the task at hand in the 
aftermath of a shooting rampage in my district yesterday. With at least 
10,000 people in a shopping mall, a young man allegedly, say some 
eyewitnesses, in body armor, and armed with a semiautomatic weapon 
discharged 60 or more shots. There were two people killed and a young 
15-year-old girl seriously wounded.
  Mr. Speaker, one is haunted by these events. We had one in Aurora, 
Colorado, at the theater where there were 12 people killed, 60 wounded; 
six people killed at the Sikh temple this summer; and the day spa in 
Milwaukee, where three women were killed before the shooter turned the 
gun on himself. We had a horrific episode earlier in my congressional 
career in Springfield, Oregon.
  It is hard to have meaningful conversations on a variety of subjects. 
I was going to deal with that problem with the fiscal cliff today, but 
gun violence is another area in America where it seems we can't have a 
discussion without delusional claims of overreach and taking away 
hunting rifles. Congress won't even allow statistics on gun violence to 
be gathered, and we certainly have made no progress towards closing the 
gun show loophole.
  Yet I come today, in the aftermath of this tragedy, with a small ray 
of hope. When nearly half of all military suicides are committed with 
privately owned weapons, the Pentagon and Congress are moving towards 
establishing policies to separate at-risk servicemembers from personal 
private weapons. Congress is poised to enact legislation to end a 
prohibition about the military collecting information about firearms 
kept at home. These are simple, commonsense steps for an armed services 
where more military personnel take their own life than who die in 
battle.
  Perhaps if we can take these reasonable steps to protect our 
servicemen and their families, perhaps we can develop the courage to 
treat the epidemic of gun violence with the same thoughtful, small 
steps when it comes to protecting the rest of our families. Until then, 
we will mourn the victims and thank God that our families were not at 
that mall.

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