[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15399-15400]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         GUN SAFETY LEGISLATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Massachusetts (Ms. Clark) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. CLARK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we grieved for 59 
Americans who were killed watching a concert and 527 people who were 
injured as bullets rained down on them. As horrible as it is, it is 
only an inflection point on the daily loss of life to gun violence.
  We have had our grisly House ritual of expressing our heartfelt 
grief, followed by a moment of silence, but the moments have extended 
into years.
  Families at home did not send us here for our thoughts and prayers. 
No one in this Chamber was elected to tackle our country's challenges 
with moments of silence.
  We were elected to work together, to debate, to argue, even fight 
tooth and nail about the problems Americans are facing and what we can 
do to help, but that is not what we are doing here.
  Even after the massacre of children and now the worst massacre by 
guns in American history, our Republican leaders continue to block 
debate on commonsense gun safety legislation that is

[[Page 15400]]

backed by Americans across the spectrum of political ideology.
  Now we have had our moment of silence, so it is back to business as 
usual: Members of Congress who call a mass shooting evil and turn 
around and take cash from the gun lobby.
  The leadership of this House is so enamored with silence that one of 
the only policies that they will talk about is silencing guns. Why 
would you endanger our police officers and families by remaining silent 
on solutions to reduce gun violence and promote a bill that deregulates 
silencers? There is only one explanation, and that is that the 
monstrous roar of the gun lobby is drowning out the voices of families, 
it is drowning out compassion, and it is drowning out common sense.
  Many say there is nothing to be done. There is a falsehood that any 
commonsense solution will lead directly to Americans losing their guns 
and their Second Amendment rights. This is as pernicious as it is 
cowardly. This is the United States Congress. Americans think that we 
are strong enough to have this debate on reducing gun violence. Why 
don't we?
  Don't shrug off the loss of life. Don't be complicit in the daily 
carnage of gun violence.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for each of us to stand up, to do our jobs, 
to come together and debate solutions, and to bring them to a vote. 
American families are counting on us, and they are watching.

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