We Are Asking for A Vote

Floor Speech

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Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, we come to the floor early this afternoon knowing that later this day we have a meeting with the Speaker. It is our goal and our hope that the Speaker will provide an opportunity for the minority party to have its two votes taken up in this Congress.

We prevail on the good nature of the Speaker and know him to be an honest and forthright man and an institutionalist who understands the House. We also know that he is not just Speaker for the Republican Conference, but he is indeed Speaker of the entire House.

We face an extraordinary calamity, a catastrophe unlike anyone has experienced in any other country in the world, and it is the ongoing slaughter that occurs. There have been more than 1,000 mass murders since the tragedy at Sandy Hook when they took, as Senator Joe Manchin said, our babies from us.

What we are asking for on this side of the aisle are very commonsense solutions; no fly, no buy. If you can't get on an airplane because you are a terrorist but you can buy a gun, doesn't it seem as though there should be regulations that would prevent that and keep guns out of the hands of terrorists, criminals, and the mentally challenged?

Also, there are background checks, which most law enforcement entities have talked about on the very bill that Senators Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin introduced in the United States Senate that received the majority of votes and that Representatives Peter King and Mike Thompson introduced in the House of Representatives.

We are asking for a simple vote. After all, that is what we are elected to do. We are elected to represent the people whom we are sworn to serve and cast votes.

It has been more than 3\1/2\ years we have not even been allowed to cast a vote in the House of Representatives. That is why so many took to this floor in an organic movement demonstrating that we have had enough and that we deserve a vote and that we demand a vote for the countless victims and families of these tragedies.

It is not enough, as respectful as it is, to stand for a moment of silence. Our caucus will not be silent anymore. We feel that silence means you are complicit with these ongoing tragedies.

So we have asked for two pieces of legislation, both commonsense and, oh, by the way, supported by--no matter what poll you read--between 85 and 95 percent of the American public. They are not controversial.

All we are asking for is the decency to perform our constitutional responsibility in representing our constituents and to have the ability to cast the vote that they are all asking for. We are prevailing upon the decency of the other side, their understanding of the Constitution, their understanding of the rules of this House. We are counting on their decency for the families and the victims to allow us those simple measures that we swear an oath to this office in order to perform.

We are asking you for a vote. It is nothing more than what is required of us when we raise our hand and take the oath here. To deny us of that is to deny us of our basic rights.

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