[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17283-17284]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, the jarring violence of last week 
seared into our consciousness. It started in Portland, Oregon, with a 
mall shooting that might have been worse, and ended in Newton, 
Connecticut, where it's impossible to imagine that it could have been 
worse. It's part of an ongoing pattern of carnage because we lose one 
life to gun violence every 20 minutes every hour every day.
  The mass murderer's rampage gets the Nation's attention, but the same 
total loss of life at Sandy Hook happens more than twice every day all 
year long.
  This is personal for me not just because the mall shooter was in my 
district, but I had a high school friend who was killed with a random, 
freak drive-by shooting. My brother took his life with a handgun as a 
young man. I've supported gun safety provisions at the State and 
Federal level at every opportunity. It might be different now, not just 
because of the horrific images of parades of funerals for little 
children.
  I salute Mayor Bloomberg's unstinting advocacy for gun safety and 
mobilizing America's mayors who bear the brunt of gun violence. I 
welcome the President's leadership and will support any reform that he 
advances.
  But I would urge my colleagues to read the columns in the Sunday 
Times by my fellow Oregonian, Nick Kristof, and Ezra Klein's article in 
yesterday's Washington Post. They demonstrate we know what works. There 
are examples around the world. Even in America with lax, weak gun 
protections, there are, in fact, some regulations in some places, and 
they make a difference.
  Let's treat gun violence like any public health crisis, which I would 
say losing 30,000 lives a year would qualify as a crisis. We need to 
treat it like the threat to public health and families that it is, 
treat a gun like any other consumer product. This is how we slashed the 
auto death rate--vehicle design and driver behavior, enforcement and 
education.

[[Page 17284]]

  For guns, it starts when Congress stops being intimidated by the 
extremists, and then just do what the majority of gun owners agree we 
should do--renew the assault weapon ban which many of us will introduce 
under the leadership of our dear friend and colleague, Carolyn 
McCarthy; ban large magazines and the most devastating bullets; and 
close the gun show loophole. These are for starters, things that NRA 
members agree with.

                              {time}  1010

  Let's care as much about real guns as we do about toy gun consumer 
protection to start us down the road of making our children safer, by 
treating children's gun safety like their auto safety.
  With all the airbags, anti-drunk driving campaigns, child seats, 
driver education, careful licensing, we slashed the accident rate. Yes, 
it didn't eliminate accidents altogether. But we can't imagine a world 
without these protections for our families.
  Let's see if we can imagine a world where our children are safer from 
gun violence, and then make it happen.

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