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[Pages H767-H768]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GUN VIOLENCE SURVIVORS WEEK
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, last night in this Chamber, we heard a
bloviating, self-congratulatory speech full of exaggerations, half-
truths, and outright falsehoods. The President pretended to have
addressed, or was going to address, concerns of the American people.
He said he is taking care of prescription drugs. Yeah. Really. They
haven't done a damn thing. We sent a bill to the Senate and it is
sitting there.
Second, he said, oh, we are going to protect preexisting conditions.
Funny thing, his Attorney General is in court arguing that those
preexisting conditions should no longer be protected. But, hey, what
the heck.
And then he did devote one sentence--one sentence--to infrastructure.
What happened to the $2 trillion plan he campaigned on and carries on
about all the time? Well, so far, he has only proposed cuts.
But one issue of vital concern to the American people that is the
focus this week--this is National Gun Violence Survivors Week--did not
receive a single mention by the President, despite the fact that
several commonsense bipartisan reforms and programs have passed this
House and have received no action in the Senate in a year.
H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Comprehensive Background Checks Act, passed on
February 27. No action in the Senate.
The Enhanced Background Checks Act passed February 28--bipartisan.
Again, no action in the Senate.
Every year, guns are sold to people who aren't supposed to have
them--including at that horrible church shooting a couple of years
ago--because of a mandate that, if there is confusion over a background
check, they have to get the gun within 3 days.
Over the last 10 years, 35,000 guns, because of that provision, were
sold to people who were not qualified under Federal law to have the
guns. And guess what. Then the Feds contact the FBI who screwed up the
background check, contacts the local law enforcement and says, ``Hey,
go get the gun
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from that felon,'' endangering our local law enforcement.
This would plug that loophole.
The Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization passed April 4. No
action in the Senate. And, for the first time in 20 years, we are going
to do some research on gun violence. There are other bills we should be
doing.
In my State, we have adopted red flag laws. And over here, they say,
well, we can't have red flag laws for abusers because of their
constitutional rights.
Well, we have set it up in a way that we have had 160 petitions for
red flag restrictions. Most of them--actually, the majority--were for
people at risk of suicide; and then a minority were for abusive
relationships, and 32 of those were denied by a judge.
Due process was followed, but lives were saved. But, no, we can't
take that.
Bump stocks, we banned fully automatic weapons decades ago. Bump
stocks, essentially, turn a semiautomatic into a very inaccurate,
nearly full automatic in terms of ready to fire. But if you are
shooting at a stadium full of people, it doesn't matter how inaccurate
it is; you are going to hit a lot of people.
We can't even bring up legislation--or, well, the Republicans won't
support legislation to ban bump stocks, hate crimes legislation, the
list goes on.
Just one other quick issue. You can go online to armslist.com, and if
you are not eligible to buy a gun, you can get one. It is very evident
that, in study after study done, that many of the people selling guns
on armslist.com are felons and not allowed to own firearms, and they
will sell to other felons. It will say: No background check necessary.
Will cross State lines--all sorts of things like that.
All those things need to be banned. Those are commonsense gun
violence reforms.
And, in this week, just, really, this week, National Gun Violence
Survivors Week, let's do something to end the bloodshed.
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