National Gun Violence Awareness Month

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KELLY of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative McClellan and Representative Carter for inviting me to speak tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because there is a gun violence epidemic in America.

I have spoken loudly and clearly on gun safety again and again and again, shooting after shooting. Moments of silence have never been enough. Thoughts and prayers have never been enough.

Americans need real action by Congress to end gun violence. That means universal background checks, funding and support for community violence intervention organizations, safe storage laws to prevent unintentional shootings, and an assault weapons ban.

We know the solution is to end gun violence, and yet the Trump administration and this legislative body refuses to act. Instead, President Trump and Republicans reversed the progress we have made these past few years.

On day one in the Oval Office, President Trump shut the doors of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Since then, he continues to pour salt into injury after injury.

The Department of Justice terminated over $66 million in grants that were already designated by Congress to community violence intervention programs.

CVI organizations are led by trusted community members who offer job training, mental health resources, de-escalation tactics, and more to keep our neighborhoods safe.

CVI strategies are proven, evidence-based solutions to gun violence, and yet the Trump administration decided they are inefficient.

House Republicans are complicit in the Trump agenda to endanger public safety. In the dead of night, Republicans added a provision to their budget that would deregulate gun silencers, allowing any and all private sales of silencers. The deregulation of gun silencers is reckless and outrageous. Silencers are not something out of a movie. They cause real pain in our communities.

In 2019, a gunman attached a silencer to a handgun that he used to kill 12 people in Virginia Beach. Survivors of the shooting said they did not flee because they didn't identify the muffled sounds as gunshots.

If the cost of American lives does not move my colleagues across the aisle, then perhaps they will be attentive to the fact that the deregulation of silencers will cost American taxpayers nearly $3 billion. Americans cannot afford the cost of gun violence, not in dollars, in pain, or in grief. Black Americans, in particular, bear a disproportionate weight of that grief.

This past weekend, I joined survivors of gun violence in an environmentally-friendly balloon release to honor the 46,000 lives lost to gun violence every year. They have lost daughters and sons, nephews and nieces, siblings, mothers and fathers to gun violence.

One daughter's name is Hadiya Pendleton. Hadiya was a bright student involved in marching band and volleyball. She was on top of the world when she led her marching band in President Obama's second inauguration. Just one week later, she was shot and killed in a park in Chicago.

Hadiya should have turned 28 years old yesterday. Hadiya's friends and family started the Wear Orange movement to raise awareness of gun violence. Now the orange color has become a beacon for activity and advocacy against gun violence.

Since they started the Wear Orange movement in 2015, I have introduced the Wear Orange Resolution every year to honor Hadiya.

I ran for office because I couldn't stand by and watch as Congress did nothing as children like Hadiya were ripped away from families. While gun violence became the leading cause of death for all children and teenagers in 2020, it has been the leading cause of death for Black children since 2006.

I swore my first oath of office just 3 months after Hadiya was shot in the Second District. Since then, I have never, ever stopped fighting for her, and I will never stop until we end gun violence once and for all.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source