[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17191]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    PROTECTING AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE

  (Mr. SABLAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise, as many others have, to offer my 
deepest condolences to the children, families, and community of 
Newtown, Connecticut. They are enduring a terrible tragedy in the Sandy 
Hook Elementary School shootings. But merely to offer condolence feels 
meaningless to me unless we also act to save other children and 
families and communities from a repetition of this same terrible 
tragedy.
  We in Congress must take action to keep assault weapons and high-
capacity clips out of the hands of those who are so dangerous or 
deranged or deluded that they can snuff out the lives of innocents on a 
whim. I understand there is a constitutional right to bear arms--I know 
the lawyers here will debate the fine points of that constitutional 
protection--but if our talk does not take guns out of the hands of 
people who would murder children, then our condolences today are just 
empty words.
  We owe it to those who died. We owe it to children still alive. We 
must protect our families from this gun violence.

                          ____________________