Our Nation is Tired of Gun Violence

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, our Nation is grieving. We are tired. We are tired of the violence that too often unsettles our communities.

What a week we had last week. We were horrified by the deaths of Lorne Ahrens, Michael Smith, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, and Brent Thompson--five officers murdered by a sniper in Dallas while they were on duty.

We saw very troubling videos of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling being shot.

Today we also mark the 1-month anniversary of the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a hateful act on the LGBT community that took the lives of 49 people. This shooting shook the country, as have the many mass shootings that have preceded it.

As we still process these deaths, daily violence continues in communities around the country. Over the weekend, the total number of shootings in Chicago, where I come from, this year exceeded 2,100. Over 300 people in Chicago have now died from gun violence in 2016.

I have received hundreds and hundreds of letters from constituents of all ages concerned about the effect of gun violence in our communities and in their communities.

Yesterday I received a letter from a young constituent, an 8-year-old named Kaline. She wrote: ``I read the Sun-Times every day like my dad. I read and still think about the story of Tyshawn Lee. It's just hitting my mind all the time because it's not fair. It makes me cry.''

Tyshawn Lee was a 9-year-old boy in Chicago deliberately assassinated, shot multiple times in the head.

Kaline continues: ``I hope people can make better decisions about what to do with guns. I hope people stop fighting about whether we should do gun control because I worry more people and kids like Tyshawn will be killed.''

We can't accept violence as normal. This is not the country Kaline should have to grow up in. And how do you explain to an 8-year old that in America, with 91 people dying from gun violence every single day, we have taken no meaningful action?

We take action all the time to protect our kids from threats to their safety. We have regulations in place on teddy bears and pacifiers, to protect children's health and safety, but nothing for guns.

Guns are specifically exempted from regulation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency charged with protecting consumers from unreasonable risk or injury or death. Gun manufacturers are protected from liability for damage caused by their weapons. The Centers for Disease Control is actually prohibited, in law, from studying the public health risk of guns.

Robert, a 91-year-old and a veteran of World War II from my district wrote: ``You know better than I do the vast array of efforts to protect the American people from the recklessness and avarice in the marketplace, yet Congress has failed the people in the matter of gun control . . . Today the American public is crying for laws,'' he says.

Robert is right. I can think of no other product or industry that has so few measures in place to protect our safety, and we need to rethink our approach to guns. We can't put the interests of gun manufacturers and the gun lobby ahead of the safety of our communities. Those of us in Congress have the power to do something, and it is long past time for us to act.

We can start with measures that have broad support among the American people. Ninety percent of Americans support comprehensive background checks. Background checks would help reduce the flood of weapons that come into Chicago from gun shows and online sales.

Would it stop every shooting? Of course it wouldn't. But would it save some lives? Absolutely.

My heart goes out to the families in Dallas and Orlando and Chicago and so many other places that have had the lives of their loved ones stolen away by gun violence, and we need to grieve. But after that moment of silence, we must direct our sadness and our anger into action.

The problem of violence in communities may seem insurmountable, and no single policy will stop every death. But we should start by passing commonsense gun legislation supported by the vast majority of the American people.

We need a vote on legislation to keep guns out of the wrong hands. Republicans and Democrats and gun owners and NRA members agree that background checks for every gun purchase and closing the gun show loopholes and all the other loopholes will help.

So give us a vote, Mr. Speaker. My constituents are crying for action. Let's act, not ignore their cries any longer. Give us a vote.

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