[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15610]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       MASS SHOOTING IN LAS VEGAS

  (Mr. SWALWELL of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, America has again been 
rocked by a mass shooting, and our hearts ache and our hands pray for 
the victims and those who are recovering. You can't help but watch the 
countless scores of video accounts and not feel an urge to act.
  My constituents ask: Are we helpless to stop the next mass shooting?
  We are only helpless once the trigger is squeezed and you are in the 
pathway of a bullet, but we are not helpless in this House. In fact, if 
we come together, we are more powerful than any weapon.
  Aren't the dead owed a dialogue, a conversation about whether we 
should have background checks, a talk about whether people who have 
weapons of war should only be warriors, and what about talking about 
restrictions on ammunition purchases?
  I refuse to accept the tradeoff that we must allow and accept that a 
mass shooting is going to happen in this country for an unfettered 
access to firearms.
  If the police officers who went into that building so blindly and 
were so brave could do that and show that courage, we can come into 
this building and have the courage to have a dialogue for those 
victims.

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