Mike Thompson: “I thank the gentlelady for her dedication, for her hard work on this, and for her taking time to be here tonight to talk…”

“I thank the gentlelady for her dedication, for her hard work on this, and for her taking time to be here tonight to talk about this. You raised the issue and praised those on the other side of the aisle, many of whom have experience--one Member from Virginia, who is an NRA member, one from Pennsylvania, who is, I believe, a district attorney; extensive law enforcement background. {time} 1910 It's important that we have this type of across-the-aisle cooperation. As a matter of fact, the people of the United States of America, every one of us hears it every time we go home--we hear it in our townhall meetings, we can read it in our constituent mail, our friends tell us, our neighbors tell us: work together to solve the problems that we all face as Americans. The fact that we have folks on the other side of the aisle coming forward to work together and then they're demonized and they're criticized for doing this, all Americans need to speak out against this. When something like this happens, we need to let everyone know that, no, we want our Members of Congress to work together to solve these problems that threaten our communities, threaten our children, threaten our grandchildren, and threaten our neighborhoods. It's very, very important to do that. As the gentlewoman pointed out, I am a gun owner and I hunt, and I believe strongly in the Second Amendment. I'm not interested in giving my guns up, and I'm not going to ask any other law-abiding citizen to give their guns up.…”