Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in discussing our country's horrific gun violence epidemic. I have risen to speak of this problem many times over the years, and to be honest it is exasperating to have to do it over and over again.

El Paso, Dayton, Gilroy, Odessa, Midland, Brownsville in New York-- the list goes on and on--city after city, community after community, devastated by gun violence. We witness these tragedies. We watch heartbreaking and nightmarish footage on our televisions. We offer our thoughts and prayers. We have heavy hearts, deep disappointment and horror, and still nothing. The Senate has still not passed any meaningful legislation to address the problem.

So here we are once again in this Chamber. Democrats are speaking out on behalf of the American people, on behalf of the citizens who are protesting and demanding action, and on behalf of our constituents who call and write and tweet to us every single day for commonsense legislation to help end this gun violence that plagues our communities.

We aren't just speaking out on behalf of Democrats because gun violence doesn't ask what political party you support. It touches the lives of everyone in this country. The majority of the American people--Democrats, Independents, and Republicans--all want action. They want their schools to be safe. They want a place to go and worship and be safe. They want to go and buy their back-to-school supplies and be safe.

Let's be really clear about the root of this inaction. It is greed. It is corruption. It is the rot at the heart of Washington. The NRA is no different. The NRA cares more about gun sales than they do about the people of this country. They care more about the gun manufacturers than they do our communities. Too many of my colleagues just don't have the guts to stand up to the NRA.

There are three effective solutions sitting right in front of us, all of which are bipartisan, all of which have been voted on before, getting lots of bipartisan support. I reject the false argument that because these commonsense proposals may not stop every single instance of gun violence that it is not worth doing them. We should do these. It makes no sense to stop doing the commonsense things just because it doesn't stop every gun crime because the truth is, it is time to do something.

We can and should ban assault weapons and large magazines. No civilian needs access to weapons of war. Those weapons are designed solely to kill large numbers of people very quickly, in minutes and seconds, and our military train heavily to be able to use those weapons well.

We can and should pass my legislation to criminalize gun trafficking. It will help slow the tide of illegal guns into cities like New York and Chicago and across the country where guns that are illegal are sold directly out of the back of a truck to a gang member or a criminal. It is one of the things that law enforcement keeps asking us to do and have been asking for a decade.

We can and should pass the red flag laws that are designed to make sure people with violent tendencies cannot have access to guns, but the first and most obvious solution should be a cakewalk for this Chamber, and that is universal background checks. This solution is supported by the vast majority of Americans. A great bipartisan bill has already passed our House, but it is not even being considered right now for a vote in the Senate.

So it is really on Senator McConnell right now. It is on him. It is his decision whether to protect our communities or not--to just protect our kids.

As a mom, when there was a shooting less than a mile from Theo and Henry's school, all I could think about was getting there as fast as I possibly could just to make sure my child was safe. That is the fear every parent in America has today. We shouldn't accept living in an America where we have to worry that our kids aren't safe in school, where they are actually doing shelter-in-place drills instead of mathematical drills. We shouldn't accept that world. We shouldn't accept a world where you can't be at Bible study with your friends. We shouldn't accept a world where you can't go to a concert or go to a movie and know that you are safe, but that is the world we are living in.

The truth about all of this is, right now at this moment, we have Americans who are fueled by hate hunting down other people with weapons of war. That has to change.

We do have the will to do this. Congress can show courage. Congress can do the right thing, so why not do it now, when the American people are begging us to just have an ounce of strength in our spines, just an ounce of courage to stand up to special interests, to greed and corruption and lies that distort this debate.

We are bigger than this. We are stronger than this. We are better than this. Let's protect our kids.

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