[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15520-15521]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN VIOLENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, last week we honored and welcomed back Steve 
Scalise to this Chamber, victim of a horrible shooting aimed at him 
because he was a Congressman. It could have been any one of us.
  Today the Democrats spoke on the steps of the Capitol about the need 
for reasonable gun law reform, and with us was Gabby Giffords, who was 
shot in 2011 because she was a Congressperson doing her job.
  Congressman John Lewis had said that you can't go to a movie theater, 
you can't go to a concert, and you can't go to school and feel safe. 
You can't be a public official and feel safe.
  What happened in Las Vegas where 58 people were murdered and over 500 
injured calls on the United States Congress to take action to protect 
the American people.

                              {time}  1015

  This is the time to act for reasonable, commonsense gun reform laws. 
Former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia Fischer, who, in 1996, after 
the greatest mass shooting in Australian history, led an effort to 
reform the Australian laws, sent a missive to President Trump 
suggesting this is the time for him to act and to do something very 
important for American society. He said: It can be done.

[[Page 15521]]

  After those killings in Australia, they passed laws that made 
automatic and semiautomatic weapons illegal. They had a buyback program 
that bought back over 600,000.
  After the 1996 effort, which was difficult but successful, Australia 
has not had a killing of over five people. Prior to 1996, they had 15 
or 16 shootings of that nature.
  Everyone recognizes Australia's success. We need to do something 
besides just having continued moments of silence.
  Yesterday, on a bill on this floor about the unborn taking precedence 
over the rights of women, quite a few Republicans came to the floor and 
talked about pain to the unborn and loss of their potential for life. 
But none have talked about the pain of the 500 who were injured and the 
58 lives that were lost.
  We could pass laws to eliminate bump stocks that, apparently, this 
murderer used to make his weapon into, effectively, an automatic 
weapon, where you can shoot hundreds of bullets at a time, which he 
did. Bump stocks should be illegal. Senator Dianne Feinstein had a bill 
to make them illegal in 2013, and she has one again.
  We need better background checks and to make sure the mentally ill 
don't get guns. Unfortunately, in this Congress, in February, we passed 
a law that President Trump signed with passion and a flare that 
eliminated a rule that said that the Social Security Administration 
would send the names of people who couldn't manage their own financial 
affairs to a bureau to see to it that they were on a list so they 
couldn't buy guns.
  If you can't successfully manage your own financial affairs, should 
you have a gun?
  I would submit not. But that bill was passed on a partisan vote and 
signed by the President, making it easier for people to get guns when 
the Social Security Administration has found they cannot manage their 
own affairs.
  The same for the no-fly, no-buy list. If you are considered too much 
of a security threat to fly on an airplane, you shouldn't be able to 
buy a gun. The arguments we heard against that were about due process.
  Has anybody brought a bill to give the people on the no-fly list due 
process? Has it come to the floor?
  No. It won't. It makes sense to have a no-fly list. They also should 
be the people that can't buy guns.
  We shouldn't have semiautomatic weapons. Automatic weapons are 
illegal. The bump stocks make regular weapons automatic weapons.
  The CDC is prohibited by law from doing a study to see if there is a 
connection between gun violence and mental health or our country's 
health. That law should be repealed. We shouldn't fear the CDC study.
  High-capacity magazines also shouldn't be permitted, and law 
enforcement should be protected from armor-piercing bullets.
  I hope that we can act to save American lives.

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