[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5460-5461]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              COMMONSENSE BACKGROUND CHECKS ON GUN OWNERS

  (Mr. LARSON of Connecticut asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I rise to commend Joe Manchin and Pat 
Toomey for coming up with a rational approach that 92 percent of 
Americans all agree with in the need for universal background checks as 
they relate to our gun laws.
  The bill was taken up today in the Senate, and the vote was 54-46. 
Every fifth grader in America is astounded that that bill was defeated. 
Only in the United States Senate, the other body, could that take 
place--that a vote of 54-46 would not pass.
  So, disheartening as it is and in reeling from the events that have 
taken place in Boston on Patriots' Day, children all across America 
cannot be reassured by their parents tonight that they are safe, but 
the NRA will sleep well this evening. Mission accomplished.
  But there is another Chamber and an opportunity for the House of 
Representatives to speak its will on the violence that has been 
perpetrated across

[[Page 5461]]

this country: in the commonsense background checks that are needed here 
in this country.

                          ____________________