Gun Violence in America

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Raskin for his leadership on the Progressive Caucus and for his leadership on the Judiciary Committee. Nobody understands the Constitution better than a constitutional law professor.

I appreciate you bringing the reality of the situation to us. Nobody is talking about trying to take guns away from everybody. We are talking about making sure that we have safety with anybody who owns a gun and that we have the ability to check any of the dangerous contexts for which guns can be used. We have a responsibility, really, to protect our country, to protect our young people, and to do something for all of the families that have been affected by gun violence.

In addition to all of the things that he mentioned, we need to consider gun violence as a public health crisis. That is what it is. And when we look around at the millions of people who are dying from gun violence, you think about this, and you think about the way in which we treated vehicle fatalities as a public health crisis and we instituted laws around seatbelts, and the way we thought about smoking as a public health crisis and we instituted laws around smoking. But, in order to do that, we had to first do research into those areas and figure out what were the best ways for us to move forward as a country in preventing those kinds of fatalities that are preventable.

Unfortunately, what happened in this country is that Congressman Dickey, some time ago, passed an amendment called the Dickey amendment. While it didn't explicitly prohibit research into gun violence, it all but did that.

There have now been many, many calls to repeal the Dickey amendment. Interestingly, Congressman Dickey passed away last year, last April. Before he died, in 2012, he actually came out on the record and said that he wished he hadn't been so reactionary, that he wished he hadn't passed that amendment, because he realized that it did lead to a chilling effect on research into gun safety. The way that it did that is, when they passed the amendment, it essentially said that no Federal funds should be used for advocacy, but, at the same time, the amount of funds that were used for research were cut by exactly that amount.

So this is not about advocacy; this is about how do we protect our country, how do we treat this as what it is: a public health crisis.

Mr. Speaker, I am here to say that I am really proud of my home State of Washington. Just yesterday, we became the latest State to ban bump stocks. And we also had a senate committee pass a bill to mandate that people purchasing rifles go through the same background checks required for pistol purchases and that we increase the legal age to buy rifles to 21.

So, in less than a month, my home State has finally advanced meaningful proposals to prevent gun violence. I wish I could say that we were doing that here in Congress. I truly believe that there are Members on both sides of the aisle who would like to pass sensible gun safety regulations and legislation.

Unfortunately, I feel like we are being held hostage not by the reasons that we all came to Congress to get sensible things done that protect our constituencies, but by lobbying interests in the National Rifle Association; and every time there is a small movement towards progress, somehow they come in and, essentially, squash those efforts.

In October of last year, Congress stood by after 58 people were killed and over 500 injured at a music festival in Las Vegas. One of my constituent's, Zach Elmore, sister was shot. Luckily, she was one of the lucky ones who survived the shooting.

I read a letter on the floor that Zach had read to me--it was an incredibly moving letter--about his deep anger and frustration at Congress for not protecting his sister and millions like her, those who were not as lucky as she was.

In November, Congress failed to act, after 26 people were killed and 20 injured at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; and then a few weeks ago, on Valentine's Day, as we all know, 14 students and 3 teachers were killed, and 15 injured, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

Already, in 2018 alone, there have been 2,581 deaths because of gun violence, including those precious lives that were lost at Parkland; 105 of those deaths were children ages 11 and under.

Let me just say that one more time: 105 of the 2,581 deaths, this year alone, were children ages 11 and under.

As Members of Congress, we need to make sure our kids are safe.

I am so grateful to the energy and the commitment and the passion and the smarts and the organizing strength of the Parkland students, because, as you say, they were not first graders who couldn't organize for themselves. They are students who are soon going to be voters. And they understand that they can't vote right now, but they also understand that they do have a voice, their parents' vote, and they can make sure that people across the country understand that we have a responsibility to them, to our children, to the people across the country who are afraid of sending their kids to school.

That should be our number one priority is keeping our kids safe. Our kids should be able to walk into schools knowing that they can fully focus on learning. Our parents shouldn't have to wonder whether their kids will come home from school.

My heart goes out to the families that lost someone in the Parkland shooting and all of the shootings across the country. I am proud to stand alongside incredible young people who wasted no time to demand action and justice for their friends and teachers. They are determined, they are brave, they are unafraid, and they are depending on us to pass meaningful legislation to end gun violence.

One of the interesting things that I heard them say when I met with them is: We are not looking for the whole package. We just want to see steps along the way that show us that it is possible for us, on a bipartisan basis, to make some progress on this critical issue, to make sure that no child, no parent, no community, ever again, has to experience the unspeakable tragedy of another school shooting.

I am tired of seeing men, women, and children die because the gun lobby puts profit over people. That is not, as Mr. Raskin so eloquently said, what our Founders intended by the right to bear arms. Support for stricter measures to prevent gun violence is at an all-time high, on a bipartisan basis. Eighty-seven percent of gun owners and 74 percent of NRA members support commonsense solutions like criminal background checks.

I have a plea for gun owners across the country. My husband used to be a hunter. We had guns at home. And I understand the need for people to have guns for recreational purposes, to ensure their own safety. But this is not about that. It is not about taking guns away from people, who legitimately exercise responsible behavior. It is about making sure that we have the protections in place so that no more children, no more people die.

So here is my plea for gun owners: urge the NRA to represent your views, show them that you mean business, maybe even consider terminating your NRA membership if the organization continues to advocate against these kinds of sensible gun reforms.

Here in Congress, I hope that we act now. I really truly believe--and I have talked to some of my Republican colleagues who also want to do something about this. They don't want to be hamstrung. They want to move legislation forward, but not by attaching legislation that actually loosens gun restrictions into legislation that helps us.

We need just one or two pieces of commonsense gun reform legislation so that we can show these young people that we are responding to their pleas: no more shootings in schools, no more shootings in places of worship, no more shootings in our streets, no more mass shootings, period.

Let's show these students and students at schools across the country that we are not afraid to protect them. Let's show them that we can choose our country over the gun lobby. Let's stand with our kids. Let's pass commonsense gun violence prevention legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I join Mr. Raskin in hoping that in the Judiciary Committee, which is the committee of record for this issue, that we can at least have some hearings on this.

What is so problematic about having a hearing on public health research into gun violence? What is so problematic about having a hearing on multiple pieces of legislation that have bipartisan support? Isn't that what we are supposed to do? I know that is why I came here.

I am a first term Member, and I know our speaker is as well, and I believe that we have much more in common than we do that divides us.

We don't have to necessarily tackle every piece of this, but let's make some substantial progress forward together, and let's show our students that we will protect them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for his leadership.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source