[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9728-9729]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN VIOLENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, the slaughter in Orlando struck me with 
special impact. The massacre of patrons of the gay night club focused 
deliberately on the LGBT community came at a time of unparalleled 
progress for equality, capped by marriage equality. It was jarring. 
Even though the struggle continues in places like North Carolina, these 
killings came at a time of amazing progress and hope.
  But horrific episodes of gun violence are always personal for me, and 
not just because of the carnage of multiple shootings and murders. We 
have had shootings in Oregon in shopping centers and schools, mass 
shootings in a high school in Springfield and a community college in 
Roseburg. We have had many deaths and injuries and Presidential visits.
  The gun violence issue started for me with the senseless freak death 
from a single shot of a high school friend from a passing car. It is 
personal. I saw this single, random shot devastate a family, friends, 
and classmates. My own brother took his life with a handgun. We know 
that, unlike other forms of suicide attempts, people with handguns 
almost always succeed.
  After each horrific event, my hope--and those of millions of other 
Americans--are raised again. Maybe this time it will be different. You 
might ask how, if even the slaughter of 20 innocent first graders could 
not give spineless politicians the courage to stand up

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to the craven apologists for gun violence?
  Well, in part, what is different was that, at Sandy Hook, those 20 
little children and their six teachers struck a chord that remains. It 
laid the foundation to help focus the relentless outspoken efforts of 
President Obama and his entire administration in dealing with each 
little element of gun safety that was within their power to make us 
safer. We have Secretary Clinton running for President who has put a 
spotlight on gun safety throughout her campaign in a way unlike any we 
have seen in a Presidential campaign before.
  One of the most encouraging signs for me is that there is a new 
approach to reducing gun violence, focused on gun safety. This is 
taking hold. A number of us have come up with our own plans.
  A couple of years ago, I formulated my approach--looking at the 
concept we did with traffic safety--not a single magic solution, but a 
series of thoughtful, focused effects that, in traffic safety, ended up 
cutting deaths and injuries in half with education, research, 
enforcement, and policy changes, large and small, that had a cumulative 
effect of saving hundreds of thousands of lives. We can do this with 
gun violence.
  An agenda of simple, commonsense approaches have been taken in other 
parts of the world, and it has made a difference. We see, in the United 
States, evidence in those States and communities that have taken action 
to reduce gun violence that people are, in fact, safer. It makes a 
difference.
  Sometimes in politics, we can feel an issue crest, and I think we are 
watching it now. This week, we have a simple, single powerful little 
symbol. The no fly, no buy legislation would prevent people who we 
think are too dangerous to allow them to buy a ticket to fly on a 
plane, should not be allowed to buy an assault weapon.
  Today, my colleagues and I are here supporting the notion that, if 
there is no bill to vote on, there should be no congressional break, 
demanding at least to allow us a vote on the floor of the House the 
same way there was some action in the Senate that gave people hope.
  Let's do our part this morning to raise public awareness, to build 
momentum to make America safer. We shouldn't go home for the Fourth of 
July break without at least another small step forward. We owe it to 
the memory of tens of thousands who have died needlessly from gun 
violence, and we owe it to the tens of thousands of lives that we can 
save.

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