[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15817]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   UMPQUA COMMUNITY COLLEGE SHOOTING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, last Thursday Americans witnessed yet 
another tragedy with the fatal shooting of nine people in Roseburg, 
Oregon, five young kids who had so much more life left to live, three 
adults who had gone back to school to better themselves and their 
families, and an assistant professor of English who used his writing 
talents to teach others, all gone too soon.
  Their lives are lost in tragedy, the kind of tragedy that our Nation 
has suffered with increasing regularity. There have been more mass 
shootings this year than there have been calendar days, 294 mass 
shootings in less than 280 days.
  In 2015 alone, there have been nearly 40,000 gun violence tragedies, 
with nearly 10,000 people killed and 20,000 wounded. Yet, sadly, each 
gun violence tragedy is met with another tragedy here in Congress, the 
tragedy of inaction.
  People are dying. People are dying from gun violence every single day 
in America, and this Congress does nothing. As President Obama said 
last week, ``We collectively are answerable to those families who lose 
their loved ones because of our inaction.''
  I have been a Member of the House of Representatives for nearly 7 
years. In that time, tens of thousands of lives have been lost, but 
this body has refused to hold even one hearing addressing the gun 
violence epidemic that is plaguing our country.
  In that time, not even once have we had a vote on the floor on 
anything, anything related to gun violence, and it is not for lack of 
ideas. We know from other countries what works. Other countries, not 
much different from ours, have tackled this issue with remarkable 
results.
  More than 90 gun-related bills offering various ways--large and 
small--for us to lessen the death toll are just sitting in committee 
waiting for action; yet, we refuse to even try.
  And forget about new gun laws. Congress has made it harder for law 
enforcement to carry out current laws. It has gotten so bad that 
Congress refuses to allow Federal agencies to even study this issue 
because they are afraid of what doctors and scientists will tell them.

                              {time}  1015

  In June, during the Labor-HHS-Education markup and just 1 week after 
the tragedy in Charleston, an amendment to end the 20-year prohibition 
on Federal funding on research related to gun violence was defeated by 
a unanimous Republican majority. Congress refuses to act and stands in 
the way when others try.
  Why is this issue different than others? What is it about these lives 
that matter less than those lost to terrorism or car accidents or 
cancer? Unless the status quo in Congress changes, we will continue to 
lose American lives to gun violence.
  In June, I urged my colleagues to break the silence, stop the 
violence, and start the conversation about gun violence in America. We 
were reeling from the tragedy in Charleston, and I recounted the other 
lives we had lost to guns in the Navy Yard, Northern Illinois 
University, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Aurora, Roanoke, Sandy Hook, 
Tucson, and Fort Hood.
  I asked my colleagues when will enough be enough? When will we 
realize and acknowledge that this type of mass violence does not happen 
in other advanced countries? When will we finally be able to have a 
national discussion about gun violence?
  The answer by House leadership has been a resounding silence.
  The first tragedy of last week was the loss of nine American lives. 
The second tragedy is the continuing inaction of Congress to do 
anything about it.
  No legislation will stop every tragedy, but passing commonsense gun 
laws will at least stop some. It is the least we can do to honor the 
memory of those we have lost to gun violence and prevent the list of 
lives lost from growing.

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