[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5420-5421]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          LET'S DO OUR PATRIOTIC DUTY AND VOTE ON GUN CONTROL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Larson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, our hearts as well go out to 
the victims and the families of those who were killed and seriously 
wounded in Boston on Patriots' Day.
  This has been a very difficult time for our country. At that event in 
Boston were families from Newtown, Connecticut, invited to celebrate 
Patriots' Day in Boston. The Red Sox play in the morning, the Marathon 
takes place, families gather, and again, America faces another tragedy.
  Last week, family members from Newtown came to the Hill to lobby 
Congress, to ask Congress what the President of the United States has 
asked of us, both in the State of the Union and in his two trips up to 
Connecticut.
  What the President has said is: however you feel about the issue of 
gun violence, however you feel about the Second Amendment, we deserve a 
vote, both in the other body, in the Senate, and here, on the floor of 
the House of Representatives; a vote not only for the 20 children and 
six teachers and administrators who died in that tragedy on December 
14, but for people in Tucson and Aurora and on virtually every street 
in cities all across America where we have seen this needless and 
senseless violence take place. Patriots' Day, another act of violence.
  Strides are being made in the United States Senate. Compromise is 
being offered on something that 92 percent of

[[Page 5421]]

the American people agree with: universal background checks, universal 
background checks to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists.
  The United States of America is currently mocked by Adam Gadahn, an 
American al Qaeda on the FBI's Most Wanted List, who taunts America and 
says this, and you can see it on BuzzFeed:

       America is absolutely awash with easily attainable 
     firearms, large-capacity clips. You can get them, even 
     without any identification.

  This from the most wanted on the FBI list.
  We need to vote in the United States Congress. If these young 
children had the courage to go after their assailant, if the teachers 
stepped in the way to protect, does Congress have the will and the 
courage to stand up and merely do what it was elected to do? Cast a 
vote in both Chambers. Cast a vote on behalf of the American people. 
Cast a vote on behalf of these children, on behalf of these parents who 
have come here to beseech the United States Congress only to do its 
responsibility, to do what we take the oath of office for.
  Ninety-two percent of the American people believe that we need 
universal background checks. We have to make sure that our bodies, both 
the Senate and the House, take up this legislation. In the aftermath of 
yet another tragedy, on Patriots' Day, the most patriotic thing we can 
do is vote.

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