Taking A Hard Look At Gun Violence

Floor Speech

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Mr. MEEKS. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning because the camera of history is rolling. It is rolling and it is recording. It is recording the fact that the NRA continues to distort the meaning of the Second Amendment, that the NRA continues to incite its members with propaganda and then threatens my Republican colleagues, and that my Republican colleagues, in fear, hover down to their wishes and do nothing to prevent mass shootings in the United States of America.

The camera of history is rolling, Mr. Speaker, and the camera will record the fact that we have a President of the United States who believes in reality TV shows. In fact, he had an open press reality show-type meeting where he made big promises of improving gun safety. The President declared, in that meeting, that Republican lawmakers are so scared of the NRA. He said that and admitted that the Republican lawmakers are scared of the NRA, but he said that he was not.

Then, just a short time thereafter, what did he do? He didn't have an open show meeting with the NRA. He didn't want the American public to see how he hovered down and gave in to the wishes of the NRA. It wasn't an open press meeting.

If he was so strongly against the NRA or could stand up to them, he should have had a meeting in the Oval Office and had the same press coverage so that we could hear what he was saying to them and they were saying to him. But all we know is what the results were.

The results were that, after he had this behind closed doors meeting with NRA, he didn't come out so strong anymore. He started to back down. He started to say--well, he was so strong about, hey, it didn't make sense about 18 to buy a gun, 18 to 21. That was not in his plans anymore. We saw that he had changed his whole demeanor. Something took place.

We say, Mr. President, if you are not afraid of the NRA, then you do an open meeting with the NRA with the same press as you have done with Members of Congress.

This is the 30th day since we have had that terrible shooting in Florida, and we have got young people now outside who are saying enough is enough. Some think young people don't have an effect on American history and the camera. Well, I dare say to you, I can recall a young person who was only about 17 years old who stood bravely and took beatings to say he wanted America to go in a different direction. That young man is now a Member of Congress and someone whom we admire. He goes by the name of John Lewis. He was only 16, 17 years old, and it changed America.

And I dare say, there are some 16- and 17-year-olds who are outside today who will change America and make it a better place, and we need to join them. We have got to stop the kinds of letters that I have been receiving in my office.

I have been receiving letters from individuals from the Jack and Jill Association, a large association of young people who want a better America, one named Jeremy Chavez, who said: ``My mother has been forced to discuss with me my fear of safety while at school in light of the mass murder of children our age in a place that should be a safe haven for our education.''

This is a conversation that neither Jeremy's mother nor any mother should need to have. Yet, with 7,000 innocent children killed since Sandy Hook in 2012, it is one that parents across America are forced to have with their children.

Parents have to instruct their kids to hide under the desk as I did as a child when I was afraid or we were afraid of a nuclear weapon when we were in the arms war. We used to have to have shelter drills. Here we are, in 2018, and our children have to have shelter drills because of Americans and others who can come in with an assault rifle and take lives in a matter of seconds.

No, that is not the United States we want. That is not the United States that these young people want to live in, and they will stand and fight and change the course of America.

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