Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protecting the Right to Organize Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Bipartisan Background Checks Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Enhanced Background Checks Act of and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mrs. HINSON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule. I think we can all agree that guns should not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. But these bills do nothing to stop the bad guys from illegally purchasing guns or reduce gun violence meaningfully. Instead, they punish law-abiding gun owners and arbitrarily deny Iowans their Second Amendment rights.

H.R. 1446 allows the government to delay the sale of a firearm for an indefinite amount of time. H.R. 8 infringes on the rights of law- abiding gun owners, criminalizing everyday transfers of guns between friends, family, and neighbors, including lending of weapons that were obtained lawfully.

Madam Speaker, these bills trample on the constitutional rights of Iowans, and I strongly oppose them.

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Mrs. HINSON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota for yielding the time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today as a voice for the thousands of students across this country who have not stepped foot in a classroom or on a playground for over a year.

In Iowa, our Governor has put students' education, their mental health, and their safety first. Our schools have reopened safely in Iowa.

My kids got on a school bus this morning and went to a classroom, and they rode that same school bus home. They got to play with their friends. They got to learn in a classroom.

Schools nationwide have to have a plan to reopen before it is too late for our students. The mental health toll of long-term school closures on our students is staggering. Recent data shows that mental healthcare claims for children ages 13-18--these are our teenagers, our next generation--have doubled over the past year, according to that data.

Emergency room doctors are saying that they are treating more and more young people in crisis than ever before. Now, it is being reported that students across the country have fallen off the grid. That is right. We don't know where they are. School districts can't find them.

As weeks out of school have turned into months, and months have turned into a year, our kids are the ones who are falling through the cracks, academically, emotionally, and physically.

Thousands of our youngest, most vulnerable Americans are unaccounted for. Enrollment is dropping, especially in rural areas in States like Iowa. So now, 1 year out of the classroom is turning into 2, at least. Who knows?

We must act. We must act today. We must act quickly. That is why I introduced the Reopen Schools Act. This legislation would ensure that our school districts are using money that was appropriated from this body, $54 billion of it, on proven safety measures that will allow them to reopen safely as soon as possible and have a plan to do so.

Throwing more and more money at this problem, and then letting it go unused, is truly a disservice to taxpayers, and it is an injustice to our students.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in standing with our kids by defeating the previous question. It is an important issue for our next generation.

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