Enough is Enough

Floor Speech

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Ms. FRANKEL of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I join with millions of Americans and the students who are walking out today and who are saying enough is enough for the gun violence in America.

Seventeen families in Parkland, Florida, are living a nightmare, and our hearts ache for them and the Parkland community. They join a growing club of grieving families all over this Nation because their loved ones were massacred in a place we expected to be safe: a concert in Nevada, a nightclub in Florida, a college in Virginia, an elementary school in Connecticut, a church in Texas, a McDonald's in California. The list goes on.

Last year there were 346 mass shootings in this country, making it the deadliest year of mass killings in a decade. Ninety Americans a day are killed by gun violence. These are not just statistics. Ninety Americans a day means 33,000 grieving families, heartbroken families who lose a child, a parent, in a click of a trigger.

We have had enough thoughts and prayers for grieving parents and enough thanks for the first responders that answer the call. The time now is for action.

I want to especially thank the young people in south Florida and now across the Nation for their courage, their passion, and persistence.

Students today are demanding we do more than shed a tear and wring our hands saying it is too complicated. Students are walking out today because they know there are too many guns in the hands of the wrong people; too many guns on the street that are made for war, not for civil society. They know that is why we should ban the sale of assault rifles and high-capacity magazines and bump stock devices, expand our background check laws, and reinstate Federal funding for gun research. There is not just one solution, but it is not so complicated that we do nothing.

So today I am going to join America's students and I will be walking out because Americans deserve a better deal, and because enough is enough.

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