Domestic Violence

Floor Speech

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, my community has experienced over the last couple of weeks senseless horrific violence done with guns, wrapped and intertwined with domestic violence.

First, I offer my sympathy to Cassidy Stay, who lost six members of her family at the hands of a gun and an individual who was coming to do harm to her aunt; and then to the family of Candace Williams, whose three children--7-year-old Neira, 1-year-old Paris, and 6-year-old Torian--watched their mother gunned down in her bedroom with baby Paris, 1-year old, sleeping alongside her mother; and of course, the Stay family--Katie and Stephen, Bryan, Emily, Rebecca, and Zach--who lost their lives at the hand of a violent individual who was, as I said, coming to do harm to his own ex-wife.

It is time to raise the understanding of domestic violence. Today, at a press conference in Houston, we announced the Candace Way Out, so that women all over America would be able to know there are places to go.

I intend, Madam Speaker, to introduce legislation to enhance the penalty for anyone involved in domestic violence that uses a gun that results in the death of that loved one. Madam Speaker, violence, guns, and domestic violence must end.

Madam Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise to speak to a tragedy resulting from another senseless act of domestic violence in my congressional district.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and relatives of Candace Williams, especially her three young children, 6-year-old Torian, 7-year-old Neira, and 1-year-old Paris, who were left without parents following the murder of their mother who was killed by their stepfather before taking his own life.

A few days earlier, Stephen Stay, his wife Katie, and their four children--Bryan, 13, Emily, 9, Rebecca, 6, and Zach, 4 were brutally shot and killed in their suburban Houston home by the ex-husband of Katie Stay's sister.

I offer my deepest sympathies and condolences to Cassidy Stay, the sole survivor of this horrific crime but who is also a hero for leading the authorities to the perpetrator of this crime.

It is imperative that we come together in strong support of a broad and comprehensive strategy to address the causes and effects of gun violence when domestic violence is involved.

Weighing heavily on our hearts and consciences is the fact that an estimated 46 million children in our country are exposed to violence each year through crime, abuse and trauma.

Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, or other abusive behavior perpetrated by a family member or intimate partner against another.

It is an epidemic affecting individuals in Houston and across the nation, regardless of age, economic status, race, religion, nationality or educational background.

Violence against women is often accompanied by emotionally abusive and controlling behavior, and thus is part of a systematic pattern of dominance and control.

Domestic violence results in physical injury, psychological trauma--and as we have seen in Houston--too often in death.

The emotional, physical, and psychological damage caused by domestic violence can last a lifetime. Consider the following facts:

1. One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime

2. Historically, females have been most often victimized by someone they knew.

3. There were 187,811 incidents of family violence in Texas in 2010.

4. There were 120 domestic homicides in 2010 as a result of domestic violence of which 43% were committed by a spouse and 24% were committed by a dating partner.

In the United States, 9,146 people were killed by firearms in 2011 a number 223 times greater than the United Kingdom, which experienced only 41 homicides by firearm.

Homicide rates in the United States are 6.9 times higher than the combined rates in 22 most populous high-income countries.

Madam Speaker, we must begin discussing common-sense steps we can take right now to combat gun violence.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee and the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, I have introduced H.R. 65, the Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act and other legislation to reduce the incidence of gun violence.

Changing a culture of violence will not happen overnight but that is no excuse for failing to try. We must try. We must not give up.

I urge all of my colleagues to join me in redoubling our commitment protect our children and our communities from domestic violence.

I ask the House to observe a moment of silence in memory of the victims of domestic violence everywhere.

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