[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 33]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  GUNS

  (Mr. CICILLINE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, last year more than 13,000 Americans lost 
their lives because of a gun. More than 3,300 children were killed or 
injured. As the President said yesterday, the question of whether we 
address gun violence is really a question about who we are and what 
kind of country we want to live in.
  Do we want to be a country in which we have a mass shooting nearly 
every single day of the year? Do we want to be a country in which 
children in a school have to practice hiding silently under their desks 
or in a closet in order to avoid an active shooter? Do we want to be a 
country in which the National Rifle Association buys influence and 
drowns out the voices of concerned citizens? Do we want to be a country 
in which all Congress does after a mass shooting is hold another moment 
of silence instead of addressing the problem?
  That is the country we live in today, a country in which gun violence 
threatens lives every day, a country in which we are growing accustomed 
to atrocities that just don't happen as often in other developed 
countries.
  Mr. Speaker, we can do better. The President has done his job. Now it 
is time for Congress to do its job.
  Let's pass universal background checks. Let's do more to keep guns 
from criminals and from those with serious mental illness, such that 
possessing a gun would pose a threat to themselves or others. Let's get 
military-style assault weapons out of our communities. Let's do better.

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