Gun Violence Awareness Month
Floor Speech
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour to speak directly to the American people about Gun Violence Awareness Month.
We are here to address the public health crisis facing not only the constituents of the Congressional Black Caucus but all Americans. Gun violence is an everyday reality that robs loved ones, erodes our sense of security, and shortens too many bright futures.
Every year, roughly 44,000 people in the United States die of gun- related injuries. In 2023, the most recent year for which the CDC provided complete data, 46,728 people died from gun-related injuries.
Black men ages 15 to 34 are most at risk, with firearm homicide rates at 22.6 per 100,000.
White males, particularly those who are 65 and older, have been disproportionately impacted by firearm suicides at a rate of 17.8 per 100,000.
In my own State of Virginia, gun violence kills over 1,200 people and wounds over 1,600 people. Suicides are 66 percent of those deaths.
In Richmond alone, where I live, 221 people were shot in 2025. While that number is the lowest on record since 2015, it is still too high.
These statistics are jarring, but they are more than just statistics. Each number is a personal tragedy--mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, friends, and loved ones whose lives were cut short due to gun violence, like 23-year-old Genesis Jones of Petersburg, Virginia, who was killed while celebrating her brother's 25th birthday when a large altercation in the area led to gunfire that killed her and 42- year-old Dominic Antoine Jackson. They died because too many people resort to gun violence to resolve what was once done by fists.
Barbie Perez, 28 years old, was shot multiple times by the father of her child during an argument. He reportedly pushed Perez, and then the argument moved outside. He went to his car and then came back, pulled out a shotgun, and shot Perez in the leg and chest. Perez' mother saw him press the gun against her back and fire more rounds before putting the car in reverse and leaving the neighborhood.
Sierra Jenkins, a 25-year-old journalist at the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press, was one of three people killed and five people shot in a shooting in downtown Norfolk after an argument broke out.
Increasingly, gun violence takes our children, becoming the number one cause of death for teens and children, like Zion Terry, the 18- year-old John Marshall student just weeks away from graduating, and his 14-year-old sister from Henderson Middle School, Sadie Terry, both killed by Sadie's father in a fit of rage.
Marquan Mitchell-Nash, my son's classmate, 1 week after I stood on this floor and took my oath of office, was killed accidentally by a gun he and his friends were using as a prop while filming a music video.
Shawn Jackson, an 18-year-old Huguenot High School student, and his stepfather, Lorenzo Smith, were killed moments after Shawn received his high school diploma because of a beef that started on Instagram and ended at that ceremony.
Samiyah ``Mimy'' Yellardy, a 17-year-old George Wythe High School student, was shot and killed in her own home on early Sunday morning during spring break.
McKenna Young, an 11-year-old, and 1-year-old Landrie Harris were both found with apparent gunshot wounds inside their Memphis home, where their mother was found with stab wounds.
These deaths impact families, but they impact entire communities. We cannot allow this violence to become normalized. We must stand together to advance commonsense gun safety legislation, invest in gun community violence intervention programs, and address the root causes that perpetrate this cycle of harm.
Year after year, we go back to our districts, and we talk to community leaders, faith leaders, and families about the real threats that they face. The overwhelming consensus is that Congress must pass comprehensive, commonsense gun safety legislation if things are ever going to get better, because standing in the well for a moment of silence and thoughts and prayers after each death is not enough.
As a State legislator, I was proud to take action to address this crisis, championing investment in the Firearm Violence and Intervention and Prevention Fund, which provided a pathway to research, demographics, and trends and implemented evidence-based solutions to address the root causes of gun violence, because those causes in the city of Richmond may be different than in Chesterfield, Norfolk, Roanoke, or anywhere else.
I led the senate to pass a bill to establish a center that takes a comprehensive approach by empowering communities to address those root causes in all its forms, and now I am working at the Federal level. We had a similar program that the White House set up under the Biden- Harris administration to work with communities to address the root causes of gun violence in those communities through evidence-based research. Now, it is gone.
I don't even know if the CDC is still tracking the data necessary on these deaths, but as a member of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, I am committed to keeping our communities safe with these commonsense gun reform policies like universal background checks and gun trace data. Yet, the majority has failed to bring a single piece of gun violence legislation to the floor for a vote this Congress, even when there is bipartisan support for investing and addressing root causes of gun violence.
We are working against the backdrop of an administration whose Federal funding cuts actively prevent us from doing our jobs to reduce such violence.
Last year, the Trump administration terminated nearly 400 grants from the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, which provided supported for everything from victim services to substance use and mental health treatment to juvenile justice and child protection.
These grants were initially valued at $820 million over multiple years. And when the administration rescinded the remaining balances for these awards, they cost our communities an additional $500 million and more lives.
The Trump administration then made deep cuts to OJP's Community Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, the largest source of Federal funding for community violence intervention, even though it is popular on a bipartisan basis.
This funding was authorized by Congress and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. Since then, over $300 million was invested in addressing community violence intervention programming and research. Now, half of those investments have been cut.
The President's latest budget cuts more than $500 million in funding to the DOJ's State and local grant programs, including restorative justice programs, community-based approaches to advancing justice, including zeroing out the community violence intervention programs. These programs are necessarily vital if we are going to intervene in the public health crisis of gun violence.
The Trump administration has also moved to rapidly and effectively reshape American gun policies, loosening restrictions, and putting more lives in danger.
This past April, ATF released 34 proposed and final rules that would severely deregulate the firearm industry. Last year's, you call it the big, beautiful bill, I call it the big ugly law, removed the $200 silencer suppressor tax even though silencers and suppressors were outlawed decades ago on a bipartisan basis.
All this does is invite tragedy back into our communities. Again, we cannot allow violence to become normalized and an acceptable part of our daily lives. So I call on my colleagues to let this June, this Gun Violence Prevention Month, serve not only as a moment of awareness but a call to action to pass meaningful reform that will save lives, support survivors, and build safer communities for the next generation.
I thank each of my colleagues who will speak tonight. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Illinois' Second District (Ms. Kelly).
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I said that gun violence is more than just statistics. Every death is someone's loved one.
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Georgia for sharing her story and turning tragedy into action.
Mr. Speaker, it is every parent's worst nightmare that when your child leaves home, whether to go to school, the mall, to worship, to a park, to a birthday party, to a friend's house, walking down the street, jogging, riding a bike, bird watching, driving and turning into the wrong driveway, when you send them off, you never see them again because of the scourge of gun violence.
It is every parent's worst nightmare when the alert goes out about a mass shooting and you wonder: Is my child there?
It is every parent's worst nightmare when their child is in the middle of a mental health crisis and because it is all too easy for them to get access to a gun, that rather than getting the help they need from medical providers, they end their suffering with a gun.
Mr. Speaker, it is every parent's worst nightmare that when you marry off your child and the marriage goes wrong or the relationship, if they are not married, and in the midst of that conflict the person who professed to love your child the most takes their life in the ultimate act of betrayal and control.
I want to thank Congresswoman McBath for having the strength to turn her nightmare into action so no other parent has to live through it.
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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned when I started, gun violence doesn't just impact those who lose their lives and their loved ones. It impacts entire communities.
Now that gun violence is the number one cause of death of children-- and I think about when I was a child, for some reason, as a member of Gen X, I was terrified of quicksand. Now, the likelihood of my being killed by quicksand was pretty low. Yet, everybody that I know who is a member of Gen X, who was a kid in the eighties, was terrified of quicksand. Now, my children are terrified of gun violence.
The anxiety they feel--particularly my son when they have an active- shooter drill, the anxiety they feel when a loud pop occurs in a public place--my son, who in the middle of his seventh grade year, after the excitement of standing on this floor as I was sworn in to office, a week later was mourning the death of his classmate, Marquan Mitchell- Nash, who was killed when a gun that he and his friends were using as a prop in a music video fired accidentally and killed him.
His school year ended a day early when Shawn Jackson, moments after receiving his high school diploma, and his stepfather, Lorenzo Smith, were killed due to gun violence that started as beef on Instagram. Something that, in my generation, high school students would have settled with their fists is now being settled permanently through guns that can cause massive damage in a small amount of time and that are all too easy to access because the root causes that lead them to pick up that gun go unaddressed.
Every time there is a shooting, whether at a grocery store, a house of worship, a school, a park, someone's home, while driving down the street, a concert, a nightclub, a movie theater--no place is immune. Every time there is a shooting, whether it is a mass shooting or the unreported, often overlooked day-to-day domestic violence or individual crimes, my son asks me a question: ``Mom, am I next?'' I look him in the eye and say, ``I am doing everything within my power to ensure that you are not.''
Mr. Speaker, I can't do it alone. Our communities can't do it alone. We are about to celebrate 250 years of the remarkable idea that all people are created equal and endowed by their creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The purpose of government is to help them achieve those ends, or at least get out of the way.
I came here to help people and solve problems. The number one problem plaguing our communities right now, and especially our children, is gun violence. Yet, even when there is bipartisan support, we can't get a vote on anything that will make a difference.
I am tired of having to see that look of fear on my son's face when he hears of another shooting and having to hear that question. I am tired of the pit in my chest when my kids leave the house, and I wonder if they will come back, not because of anything that they do but because of the public health crisis of gun violence.
So let's do something about it. At a minimum, let's address the root causes, but thoughts and prayers aren't enough.
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