Commonsense Solutions to Gun Violence Crisis

Floor Speech

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Ms. UNDERWOOD. Madam Speaker, I rise to call on our colleagues in the Senate to swiftly pass H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act; and H.R. 1446, the Enhanced Background Checks Act.

These bills are bipartisan, commonsense solutions to our Nation's gun violence crisis. Together, they accomplish what the vast majority of Americans want, to keep guns out of the wrong hands. I was proud to cosponsor both bills and vote for them when they passed the House last week. Now it is time for the Senate to take action.

In 2020, the Gun Violence Archive reported more than 40,000 deaths caused by gun violence, including over 1,300 children. Yet, despite the fact that gun violence continues to rise--and 90 percent of Americans, including 80 percent of gun owners support universal background checks--Republicans in Congress have spent years blocking bipartisan legislation to close our biggest loopholes and keep our communities safe.

Gun violence is preventable, yet it is such a tragically routine occurrence in this country that every community has a story. Mine is no exception.

I recently joined the Aurora Historical Society in Illinois to pay tribute to the five people murdered and the seven heroic first responders who were injured 2 years ago during a shooting at the Henry Pratt Company.

The mayor of Aurora, Richard Irvin, said after the shooting that ``we as a society cannot allow these horrific acts to become commonplace.''

Yet, absurdly, we have already reached the point in which this unspeakable tragedy in Illinois is not even America's most lethal mass shooting in a town named Aurora. So I call on my colleagues in the Senate to take action with us so that our children can someday live in a country in which gun violence is no longer commonplace.

Madam Speaker, as a nurse, I am thrilled that, in 2019, we finally directed Federal funding toward public health research on gun violence, for the first time in two decades. This type of research is critical for evidence-based policymaking, and I will keep fighting to make sure that that funding continues. But studying the problem is just the first step in our work to solve it. It is already past time to make simple changes that we already know work.

Madam Speaker, background checks are a simple, effective way to keep guns out of the wrong hands. A 1995 Connecticut law requiring background checks for firearm purchases was associated with a 40 percent decline in gun homicides and a 15 percent drop in gun suicides. Meanwhile, when Missouri repealed a similar law in 2007, gun homicides jumped by 23 percent, while firearm suicides rose by 16 percent. Homicides and suicides by other means stayed flat in both States; only gun violence changed.

I wish all our public health crises had such a clear, straightforward solution.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 8 would require a lifesaving background check for every gun sale, while H.R. 1446 would give the FBI more time to complete those checks before a single sale goes through. These bills would not add any new restrictions on who can buy a gun or what kind of gun that they can have. Rather, it would make it easier to enforce our existing gun laws and stop guns from being sold to people who are already prohibited from owning one.

Madam Speaker, I am not willing to wait for the next murderer to attack the next church in the next Charleston. I am not willing to wait for the next angry employee to murder his coworkers at the next Henry Pratt in the next Aurora, Illinois. I am not willing to wait for the next Aurora, Colorado, or the next Pulse Nightclub, or the next Parkland, or the next Tree of Life, or the next Sandy Hook. I am also not willing to wait for more women to be murdered by their abusers, or for more children to be lost to gun violence.

I am done waiting. My constituents are done waiting. Enough is enough.

Americans deserve to feel safe in their schools, in their houses of worship, in their movie theaters, in their workplaces, and in their homes. We can no longer live in a country where any building can so easily become a battlefield.

Madam Speaker, my colleagues and I in the House voted last week for a safer future for our children. Now I call on my colleagues in the Senate to save lives and send H.R. 8 and H.R. 1446 to the President's desk.

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