On the recordJuly 5, 2016
It seems that when it comes time to attempt another repeal of the Affordable Care Act, House Republicans are willing to bring an unlimited number of bills to this floor, consume an almost unlimited amount of this House's resources. It seems that Congress is always ready to act and always ready to have debates and votes on their favorite issues for their favorite special interests. But when it comes to the worsening gun violence epidemic in America, we are back to the moments of silence. We are back to the banging of the gavel, the 30 seconds, at best, of silence, followed by another bang of that gavel and the resumption of business as usual; no meaningful debates, no meaningful votes. And we are now hearing that this week we are going to get a glorified moment of silence, a bill, written and blessed by the NRA, that would not keep guns out of the hands of terrorists or other dangerous people because it imposes a completely arbitrary 72-hour time window within which standards must be met that are simply unachievable. The prosecutor, the U.S. attorney, the Attorney General, must somehow, within this 72-hour window, marshal evidence that meets a probable cause standard that an individual is about to commit an act of terror, serve process on this individual, make sure that individual has been able to hire an attorney, and give that individual the opportunity to show up at a hearing and present their side of the case.…
