Providing for Consideration of H.R. Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this rule and to speak about a critical issue. We must stop the senseless gun violence in this country.

Last Wednesday, at my SpeakOut to stop gun violence, a courageous young man stood up to tell his story. Josh Stepakoff here was the victim of a mass shooting when he was 6 years old and miraculously survived it. He was finishing a game at his home away from home, the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles. He assumed that the strange man in front of him was a construction worker and that what he held at his hip was a power drill.

How could he know that this man was a neo-Nazi carrying a semiautomatic weapon and hundreds of rounds of ammunition intent on killing as many people as he could?

Two of those bullets hit Josh, barely missing his spine and vital organs. The physical and mental damage changed Josh's life forever, and now he and his mother have devoted their lives to stopping gun violence.

The NRA is saying that the way to keep people safe is by making more guns available to everybody. If this is the solution, the U.S. would be the safest place in the world. Instead, we face danger from guns everywhere, even movie theaters, elementary schools, and churches.

Enough is enough. We must pass commonsense gun violence prevention laws now. Now is the time to pass no fly, no buy and the comprehensive background check bills.

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