Providing for Consideration of H.R. Separation of Powers Restoration Act of Providing for Proceedings During the Period From June Through July and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. It has nothing to do with the bad bill, as indicated.

Mr. Speaker, for years Democrats in this House and a majority of the American people have demanded a vote on gun safety bills. After hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their lives to a gun, Republican leadership is bringing up an NRA-written bill that does little to make our communities safer. Republicans aren't serious about gun reform, not even preventing suspected terrorists on the no-fly list, like the one in Orlando, from buying a gun.

It is ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous that suspected terrorists can still buy guns at gun shows or online without completing a background check, and it is downright irresponsible for this loophole to continue to put guns in the hands of those who shouldn't have them. It is just as irresponsible for Republicans to allow the NRA and gun manufacturers to dictate how the gun industry is regulated. That is insane.

Should we also allow the tobacco industry to write a bill regulating cigarettes?

The answer to that is no.

We should protect the people who elected us, not the interests of the gun lobby. With 33,000 friends and family members dying by a gun every year, it is truly upsetting that these bills fail on very short or real reform that would protect American lives.

During the civil rights movement, when legislation was slow in moving, Dr. Martin Luther King asked the question: How long? He said: No matter how difficult the moment or how frustrating the hour, not long.

And so today the question is: How long before someone who is on the no-fly list can no longer buy a gun?

I say not long because truth crushed to Earth will rise again.

How long before the NRA run the Republican Congress?

Not long because no lie can live forever.

How long before the Republicans keep good bills from the floor?

Not long because you shall reap what you sow.

What we have and what we will have is legislation that will help reduce gun violence because the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, and justice requires us to have a vote that will save American lives because Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired of gun violence.

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