Guns

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Mr. Speaker, over a month ago, I stood in this Chamber and delivered a message from San Diegans who were calling on Congress to expand background checks for gun purchases. Since then, Congress has done nothing.

Last week, a gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. What did Congress do? Nothing.

Yesterday, there were deadly shootings in Houston, Savannah, and, in San Bernardino, 14 people were killed at a social services center.

Today, here we stand in the only building in the Nation that could do something to curb this awful violence, and we cannot even get the Speaker of this House to let Congress vote to let us act on one of the several proposed laws that many of my colleagues and I support.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough. Moments of silence are not enough. Maybe, Mr. Speaker, instead of a moment of silence, the American people could get a moment of action--a moment of action that might keep their communities from being next.

If we want to honor these victims and their families, then we should do our jobs, and we should act now.

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