Gun Violence

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for taking this Special Order.

I thank the gentlewoman from Ohio for that eloquent and passionate plea to put negligence aside, to put inaction aside, and to understand that in this House, we have an opportunity to take action.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to think of LeBron James' feeling helpless-- one of the greatest athletes of our time and, perhaps, of all time. He is an extraordinarily powerful individual. For him to stand and say, I am frustrated and I feel helpless, in part, that is because he has sent people to Congress. He and 320 million Americans have sent people to Congress to respond and to keep them safe.

Can we keep them perfectly safe?

We cannot.

John Kennedy was speaking to a group of parents of children with disabilities. He stood before them and said: ``Although these children have been the victims of fate, they shall not be the victims of our neglect.''

Mr. Speaker, today, tomorrow, the week after, and for months to come, we do not know how many people will be victims of today's neglect; victims because we took a walk today rather than action on this floor of the people's House. We will never know the price that we will pay, but we surely know there will be a price.

Speaker Ryan, upon taking the Speaker's gavel, called for a return to regular order, openness, and transparency; and I would like to read his quote because it was a good quote.

He said: ``We need to return to regular order.''

Then he said: ``We will not duck the tough issues.''

Today we ducked. Today we said we are not going to apply our ability to take action. We are going to go home.

The American people, Mr. Speaker, ought to know that we weren't scheduled to go home until tomorrow night, and the American people ought to know that the President of the United States asked us, some 5 months ago, to apply resources so as to protect the public health from the Zika plague. So not only have we not dealt with gun violence, but we have not dealt with two simple but profound, commonsense actions.

Mr. Speaker, I could walk across to that rostrum where Republicans usually speak. I am at the rostrum where Democrats usually speak.

There ought to be a rostrum in the middle where we speak not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans, as parents, as husbands, as wives, as neighbors, as friends to protect and preserve not only the Constitution of the United States but their lives and their future.

Congresswoman Beatty said it so well, ``Black lives matter,'' and then she added quickly, ``Blue lives matter.'' And of course she meant those who protect us and are sworn to put themselves at risk so that we may not be at risk. We lost five of them and we lost the young man in Minnesota and a not-quite-so-young man but another man in Louisiana just these past few days.

Mr. Speaker, you said, ``We will not duck the tough issues.'' We don't think this is a tough issue, but maybe some people do. We think this is commonsense reason to pass a bill that says, if you are too dangerous to fly on an airplane in America, you are too dangerous for us to sell you a gun.

If we accept the premise that we ought to have background checks, which we do, then those ought to be not in just some cases but in every case so that we are not keeping people safe just in some instances but in every instance.

``We will not duck the tough issues.'' The Speaker then said, ``We will take them head-on.''

We have been asking now for years and certainly very directly for a number of weeks now to bring these bills to the floor that provide for universal background checks and for protecting people from people who are dangerous and who would buy guns but are too dangerous to fly on our airplanes.

That is all we are asking. We are not even asking that it pass. We will vote for it. We hope a large number of our colleagues will vote for it. Because I tell you, the American people are speaking from that middle mike, which does not exist. But their voice in the middle here is 90 percent of them saying, ``Please, Congress, do these actions.''

The Speaker went on to say, ``We should not hide our disagreements.'' The American people don't have much of an agreement; it is nine to one.

``We should not hide our disagreements,'' he said. ``We should embrace them. We have nothing to fear from honest disagreements honestly stated.''

Bring them to the floor, Mr. Speaker.

Tonight, two friends of mine, Wendy Edmonds and Bobbe Frasier, will be with us tonight at 7:30. They lost Sylvia Frasier, their sister, at the United States Navy Yard, just a few blocks from where we stand, by someone who essentially invaded the Navy Yard and killed a significant number of people.

But the Congress has gone home. The leadership believes there is no more business left to do before going home to their districts for the next 7 weeks.

Tell that to the people of Flint, who 24 months after the lead was discovered which gave such danger to their children and damaged their children--tell that to them. They have been waiting eagerly for Congress to take up legislation providing them with critical resources to recover from the lead poisoning in their water supply. They shall not be the victims of our neglect, but they are. We have gone home.

Tell that to millions of Americans in Puerto Rico and across this country who are at risk this summer of exposure to the Zika virus. Tell that to the millions of families who have been affected by gun violence and are looking to Congress to enact commonsense gun safety reforms.

So I tell my Republican colleagues, the Speaker, the majority leader, there is much work to be done right now. It is irresponsible that the majority would continue to obstruct and delay any action on these three pressing national crises. Instead, we should be remaining in Washington until they are addressed.

We saw the other night a bill pass from conference with no debate in just a few minutes--a major piece of legislation. Time is not the problem. Commitment is the problem.

Democrats, as Congresswoman Beatty said so eloquently, are ready to stay here and do the hard work. And I am asking the Speaker and the majority leader to commit to doing the same.

The American people expect us to do our jobs, not just shrug and go home. We owe the American people that duty and that action. Let us vote.

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