Recognizing Gun Violence Awareness Month

Floor Speech

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Ms. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank this Chamber that affords the time for this special hour. It is a profound and deep honor to stand here with my friend, who I am also privileged to call one of my heroes, Congresswoman Lucy McBath, who I came into this very Chamber with as new freshmen, the class of 2018. Most of us never ever had run for office, and we took on a new House majority in a very challenging time for this country.

I have seen her work day in and day out. It doesn't matter if it is Gun Violence Prevention Month. While I never got to meet her son, Jordan, and his fate is certainly why I know his mother, I know his soul, and I know his spirit because his mother has channeled it into good and into change and into togetherness for this Nation of ours.

Mr. Speaker, I also stand here as a Representative of Michigan, and we are coming out of a very tough week in Oakland County. About 10 days ago, we had a shooting incident at a splash park on a Saturday, the day before Father's Day, with nine injured parents shielding their infant children, a grandfather, an 8-year-old shot in the head and still is in the hospital. This was followed by another horrific scene the next Saturday; an Oakland County deputy sheriff was shot while investigating a crime in Detroit.

Time and time again, we see these incidences. We see these horrific mass shootings. I have, as a lawmaker and as a policymaker and someone who has stood by President Biden, who has stood by my colleagues on getting so much done, remain absolutely baffled by these statistics, by these events, that just seemingly and uniquely happen in a country where we refuse to change our laws, where we continue on this path of insanity.

There is too much pain. There are too many mass shootings. I invite everyone to 2411, my office in Rayburn, outside of my office door, where I have the orange ribbon for every mass shooting that has happened this term in Congress. We are over 800.

I remember calling Congressman Neguse when the mass shooting happened in his grocery store in his district. I remember the mass shooting in Buffalo and how personal that has felt. Again, another grocery store. We are arming hate in the United States of America, and we are arming insanity. Yes, those of us on this side of the aisle are talking about common sense, and we all have a responsibility to the next generation.

Our first Generation Z Member of Congress, Maxwell Frost, has been carrying the torch of gun violence prevention through his activism work before he entered this very Chamber. When are we going to double down on passing commonsense gun safety legislation? When are we going to say that the right to bear arms is a privilege in the United States of America?

Our U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, just proclaimed gun violence as a public health crisis, and that is what it is, at parties and in grocery stores and in houses of worship.

We are in a grand competition on the global stage. I have been so honored this term to work on the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. We need to look ourselves in the face, and we need to show that democracy works, and it works when we pass laws. It works when we regulate.

It works when we institute training programs and check-ins and red flag laws and when our prosecutors prosecute, like our Oakland County prosecutor did in Oakland County, Michigan, the parents who don't utilize safe storage.

Your right is a privilege, and our right to live freely, safely, and peacefully deeply matters, even outside of the month of June, where we say wear orange and stand for gun safety and gun violence prevention. This is something we can all rally around and do, just as we did 2 years ago almost on this very day, when we passed a bipartisan gun safety law. That was a good start, but there is more to do because these mass shootings and these shooting deaths of innocent children and people continue to happen in the United States of America.

Anyone who walks through the door to my office will see those orange ribbons and is invited into the conversation and the solution making that we need.

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