Thousands Gather to Protest Gun Violence

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, as we speak, thousands of young people from across the country are gathered outside to protest gun violence and to ask, to beseech, to demand that we take action.

Mr. Speaker, we know what to do. We know that we ought to amend the law to provide effective background checks before people can purchase guns--not just background checks when you purchase from a licensed dealer, but background checks when you purchase a gun anyplace.

We know that we ought to eliminate the 3-day limits so that, if they don't finish the background check within 3 days, you can't get your gun.

We know that we should renew the assault weapons ban that was in effect from 1994 to 2004 so you can't buy military killing machines in this country for civilian use.

We know we ought to ban the high-capacity magazines that can convert guns into killing machines for large numbers of people that have no other purpose. You don't hunt a deer with a high-capacity magazine.

We know we ought to ban bump stocks, and we know the other things we ought to do.

But we are, too many of us, cowards. We quell before the National Rifle Association.

We know the fact is that it is guns in the hands of people that kill people. Compared to every other country in the world, every other industrial country in the world, we stand out like a sore thumb.

If you look at other statistics, this country--Great Britain, 75 people killed by guns in a year; another country, 142. No country is in more than three digits except the United States at 33,000.

They tell it is mental health. The American people do not have mental health rates or lack of mental health 1,000 times or 10 times or 20 times or 40 times more than people in Western Europe or Japan or Australia. You cannot explain a difference of 75 or 150 to 33,000 by mental health.

They tell us we should arm teachers, but we know that trained police officers hit their targets about a third of the time when they fire a gun and, in a gunfight, when the adrenaline is running, 13 percent. If we arm the teachers, we will have more teachers and more students killed.

We have a President who has shown cowardice. He criticized Senator Toomey for being afraid of the NRA, and then he, after meeting with the NRA, backed down on everything he said he would do.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, we know what to do. We are the only country in the world with the kind of gun murder rates that we have.

The Republicans have opposed all the measures that we ought to take, but the Republicans have a choice. They can continue to be complicit in their repeated slaughter in our schools, in our churches, in our concert halls, and in our streets by continuing their cowardly subservience to the NRA, or they can act to protect us and our children. They know how to do it. They cannot have it both ways. Let's see what they do.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source