Gun Violence Awareness Month

Floor Speech

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Mrs. McBATH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Virginia so very much for holding this Special Order hour on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, but more so, because this is National Gun Violence Awareness Month, and I am very, very aware of this month.

I make time and effort every single year during this month to continue to highlight the scourge of gun violence in America as a public health crisis. I thank the gentlewoman very much for hosting this Special Order hour.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today during National Gun Violence Awareness Month to address a crisis that continues to devastate our families and communities all across our Nation.

For far too many Americans, especially Black Americans and other marginalized groups, gun violence is not an abstract policy debate. Gun violence is a daily threat, a lived reality, and, too often, a source of unimaginable pain and loss.

For me, this mission is deeply, deeply personal. Nearly 14 years ago, my son, Jordan, was taken from me by senseless gun violence. I know that I have told the story a thousand times on this floor to this body, and I will continue to do so because his life and his story do matter.

My son was simply going shopping with his friends, from one mall to the next. They stopped at a convenience store gas station to get chewing gum because my son Jordan said: If we are going to pick up girls at the next mall, we have to have fresh breath.

They stopped at a convenience store gas station in Jacksonville, Florida. Within 3\1/2\ minutes, a man drives up next to them and parks next to them, on the passenger's side. He labels the boys gangbangers and thugs, and racially profiles them because of the music that they were playing. He started a verbal altercation with the boys, in particular, my son, Jordan.

My son, as I had trained him to do, defended himself. He basically said: We are not bothering you. We are not doing anything wrong. We are just playing music. Can you just roll up your window?

This man proceeds to tell him: You can't talk to me that way.

He took his gun out of his glove box, got out of his car, and took a shooter's stance. As the boys were trying to move out of the line of fire and backing out of the parking lot, he took a shooter's stance and shot 10 bullets into their car.

Three of those bullets hit my son, and he lay dying in the back seat of the car, in his friend's arms. Thank God, the other boys were not hurt.

I recount this story over and over and over and over again because there is no measure of time that can dull this open wound and this pain. My son Jordan's memory inspires me to ensure that there is no other parent in this country who will ever have to endure what I have endured and what so many families in the United States continue to endure.

We often talk about the lives of people who are lost. We rarely acknowledge the lives saved and people who are still with us because someone intervened or because a program worked. As my colleague has expressed, all the work that we did with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act has saved lives. That is because the community stepped in before a trigger was actually pulled.

We can't quantify those victories, but we know that they matter. We know that they worked. They remind us that prevention is possible, but more so that prevention is absolutely necessary.

The pandemic revealed just how quickly gun violence can escalate. In 2020, the United States experienced the largest single-year increase in homicides in modern history. That spike was not inevitable. It was a warning about what happens when communities' safeguards and resources are strained, taken away, or diminished.

In 2021, we passed the American Rescue Plan Act. We delivered $350 billion to State and local governments, including $15 billion specifically for public safety and violence prevention.

These dollars helped cities hire crisis responders and people who were doing work for gun violence intervention on the ground. They were targeting those elements in our communities that precipitated a lot of the gun violence. They were expanding community violence intervention programs in America.

In 2022, we passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It is the most significant, comprehensive gun violence legislation we have ever enacted in this country. It strengthened our background checks, cracked down on gun trafficking, and invested in mental health and community safety initiatives. These were meaningful steps forward. They were making a difference.

Yet, instead of building on these protections, the Trump administration has used the last 18 months to dismantle these safeguards and make it easier for dangerous individuals to have access to firearms.

These choices have put American lives at risk, and they undermine the progress the communities fought so hard to achieve.

Our work is far from finished. Gun violence remains one of the most urgent public health crises of our day. It is a public health crisis. We cannot allow the voices of our survivors, our families, and frontline communities to be drowned out or to be dismissed.

I remain committed to advancing legislation that protects our children, strengthens our neighborhoods, and prevents the next tragedy from happening. I am so proud to continue to fight alongside my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus and gun sense champions here in Congress who have long led the charge for justice and equity.

Shortly after my son was murdered, I, along with other mothers of the movement, as we were called--it was the mother of Trayvon Martin, the mother of Hadiya Pendleton, the mother of Eric Garner, the mother of Michael Brown, the mother of Dontre Hamilton, and, of course, my son, Jordan. We had the very rare opportunity to travel around the country with Secretary Clinton, who was then running in the 2016 campaign for President. We were allowed to campaign alongside her as the face of gun violence in America.

That is the first time in the history of any campaign that gun violence survivors and victims were allowed to tell their stories, were allowed to remind Americans of the scourge of gun violence, and that no one in this country, at any point in time, is immune from being hurt by unnecessary gun violence.

In this country, the industrialized United States of America, you are 25 times more likely to die by gun violence. In this country, our children are dying by gun violence, because it is the leading cause for them to die by unsecured firearms in households.

We are the most violent industrialized nation in the world. Our children suffer from the trauma of lockdown drills, not drills for tornadoes or hurricanes. They are traumatized by those alone, even if there is not an incident in their schools.

There is violence in every corner of the United States, in every district. Every Member in this body has constituents who have been hurt, maimed, affected, or influenced by gun violence.

We have domestic violence by gun, suicide by gun, child deaths by gun, and homicide by gun. Gun violence in America is a public health crisis, and it should be dealt with as such.

Gun violence prevention is not about infringing upon people's Second Amendment rights. It is about sensible gun ownership, about law-abiding citizens having access to firearms to hunt and to be gun enthusiasts, but also having a balance to make sure we are preventing people from being hurt, maimed, and suffering from gun violence.

We owe it, I owe it, to every family member touched by gun violence and to every family that we can still protect to meet this moment with courage and conviction.

People are crying out, and how dare we, this body, be deaf to it?

If we say we are going to be pro-life, pro-life isn't just about what happens in the womb. Pro-life is about existing life and people having the ability to live in their communities and their homes and our children to go to their schools and live in their neighborhoods without being afraid of being gunned down. That is pro-life.

So as a survivor of gun violence, I have vowed to my deceased son and to every survivor that I have met over the years to never ever let this body forget and to never let anyone forget our responsibility to keeping them safe.

Mr. Speaker, I will do my part, and I pray that this body has the courage to do theirs.

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