[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15523]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              PASSING COMMONSENSE LAWS REGARDING FIREARMS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago, I stood on the east 
steps of this ornate building, and I now rise in the hall of this 
august body to call for action on an issue that has languished for far 
too long. Specifically, Congress needs to pass commonsense reform of 
our laws regarding firearms.
  I applaud our concerns for broader background checks, but broader 
background checks must be as effective as they are efficient. It is 
true that our current technology allows us to be efficient enough for 
background checks to be completed within 3 days, and over 90 percent of 
them are.
  But what happens to that less than 10 percent? And why aren't they 
completed within that timeframe? Well, Mr. Speaker, we do not have a 
perfect world. Our public servants are not perfect and the consuming 
public is not either. Public servants occasionally make mistakes, and 
some consumers intentionally make misrepresentations.
  No matter how good our technology is, sometimes the process requires 
more than 3 days to ferret out dishonest and ill-intended purchases. We 
need to close the gaping loopholes in our gun laws. We need to close 
the internet sale/gun show loophole that allows gun purchases to evade 
restrictions in place when purchasing a weapon through a licensed 
dealer.
  We need to close the loophole that allows individuals on the 
terrorist watch list to purchase firearms. We need to close the 
loophole that allows domestic abusers to purchase guns. We need to 
close loopholes that allow semiautomatic weapons to be effectively 
turned into illegal automatic weapons.
  The so-called bump stocks that allow the retrofitting of 
semiautomatic firearms to make them fully automatic should not be 
legal.
  The Las Vegas shooter had several of these devices that enabled the 
firing of hundreds of rounds per minute. The purchasing of fully 
automatic weapons has been significantly restricted in this country 
since the 1930s, because weapons of war should have no place in our 
civil society. Give us a vote to close this loophole.
  We need to close the Charleston loophole that allows purchases of 
firearms without the completion of a background check. My Background 
Check Completion Act will do just that and prevent another tragedy like 
the Emanuel AME Church shooting that took the lives of nine worshippers 
more than 2 years ago. Give us a vote to close this loophole.
  Mr. Speaker, Congress needs to pass commonsense reforms of our laws 
regarding firearms. Give us a vote.

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