Celia Israel: “I thank the distinguished gentleman and my friend. More than anything, I want to thank him for his leadership in being…”

“I thank the distinguished gentleman and my friend. More than anything, I want to thank him for his leadership in being able to bring people on both sides of this aisle together on the commonsense notion that, if you can't buy a plane ticket, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun. If you are on the terrorist watch list, you shouldn't be able to avail yourself of a weapon. Mr. Speaker, when 20 children were murdered in Sandy Hook, the district of the gentlewoman from Connecticut, I really believed that Congress was going to do something. What did we do? Nothing. When Americans were murdered in San Bernardino, I said, well, this time we are going to do something. What did we do then? Nothing. We do moments of silence, and we do not act. Enough silence. We are here to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and protect and defend the lives of the American people, and to allow lives to be mowed down, to allow our fellow citizens to be slaughtered and say that the solution to this is another moment of silence is unconscionable. We came into session tonight, Mr. Speaker, and on Friday, the Speaker of the House will bang the gavel down and send Congress home for a week. In that week, so many more Americans will be killed by gun violence--so many more. To allow this Congress to take a week's vacation and do nothing on gun violence is unconscionable. No bill, no break, Mr. Speaker. No bill, no break.…”