Gun Violence
Floor Speech
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Ms. KELLY of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise today disappointed by the lack of leadership on display in this House. Gun violence is a terror in many of our communities, and we must stop it. In 2016, we have had more than 10,000 preventable gun deaths in America.
Consider this: this past Labor Day, the city I represent, Chicago, saw its 500th homicide of the year. We have seen 3,000 people, alone, shot in 2016--3,000 shot, 500 dead, and 90 murdered in August, alone, in one city.
Too often we write gun violence off as an urban condition. But the gun deaths we are facing are not only urban; it is everywhere and impacts us all:
Kids died in Newtown; people were murdered on live TV in Roanoke and massacred in Orlando. Gun violence has altered the lives of Speaker Ryan's constituents in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. It turned fatal for Nykea Aldridge, a mother of four young children in Chicago, who was just walking back from registering her children for school. It turned family movie night into a horrific final act for 12 people in Aurora, Colorado. Gun violence turned a fun night out in to a final terrifying moment for 49 people in Orlando and left indelible emotional wounds in the hearts of more than 50 others who suffered injury.
Mr. Speaker, what will you do before this year ends to prevent even more unnecessary and preventable gun violence? What are you and your caucus going to do to change the fact that American children are 4 times more likely to be killed by a gun than Canadian children, 7 times more likely than Israeli children, and 65 times more likely than British children?
There is no room for your deafening silence. There is no justification for your gavel to drown out the cries of families being terrorized by gun violence. It is said that ``the blood brother of apathy is the inability to prioritize that which is important.''
Mr. Speaker, your apathy is America's agony. Our constituents elected us to work together to solve our Nation's biggest problems. If gun violence is not monumental, then what is? Right now, anyone can buy a gun online or at a gun show without a background check. Why does that make sense? We have a gaping hole in our system that must be closed.
Some States and municipalities already have strong, comprehensive background check laws, but many others do not, preventing laws from truly having their fullest impact. This is the case in Illinois.
I represent communities plagued by gun violence. Despite Chicago and Illinois having strong gun laws, our neighbors have very weak gun laws; so a criminal, a domestic abuser, a terrorist, or a person who is dangerously mentally unstable cannot get a gun in Illinois, but they can jump in their car, drive to a gun show in a bordering State like Wisconsin to buy a gun, and drive back to commit a horrible and preventable crime.
In a 4-year period from 2010 to 2014, 10,000 crime guns recovered in Illinois were from other States. Nearly 1,000 of the guns killing my fellow Illinois residents came from the Speaker's home State of Wisconsin. Wisconsin's lax gun laws are tied to 10 percent of Illinois crime guns.
This demonstrates what is all too obvious to 90 percent of the American public: it is the duty of Congress to pass comprehensive background checks to ensure that no matter where a dangerous person lives or travels, they cannot access a firearm.
If you are too dangerous to buy a gun in Illinois, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in Wisconsin. Forty percent of gun sales are online or at gun shows, where a background check is not required.
What if 4 out of every 10 people at an airport or right here in the Capitol didn't have to go through security? Would we enjoy the same level of safety as we do?
Requiring comprehensive background checks is a simple, logical measure. It is embarrassing that we are even having this discussion. This isn't about taking away our constitutional right to bear arms. Law-abiding citizens who aren't dangerous and can pass a background check will still have access to their firearms for hunting, self- defense, and for personal, legal use.
So, if you are not a danger to yourself or others, is undergoing a background check in order to maintain and buy a gun really that much of a big burden? Second Amendment rights, like all other Amendments guaranteed by our Constitution, have logical limits.
Keep guns out of the hands of the terrorists killing our children, off our playgrounds and streets, and away from people who are killing police officers like the one we just heard about. Once again, I ask: Who has to get shot, and just how many have to die before you do your job, Mr. Speaker?
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