Katherine Clark: “Yesterday we grieved for 59 Americans who were killed watching a concert and 527 people who were injured as bullets…”

“Yesterday we grieved for 59 Americans who were killed watching a concert and 527 people who were injured as bullets rained down on them. As horrible as it is, it is only an inflection point on the daily loss of life to gun violence. We have had our grisly House ritual of expressing our heartfelt grief, followed by a moment of silence, but the moments have extended into years. Families at home did not send us here for our thoughts and prayers. No one in this Chamber was elected to tackle our country's challenges with moments of silence. We were elected to work together, to debate, to argue, even fight tooth and nail about the problems Americans are facing and what we can do to help, but that is not what we are doing here. Even after the massacre of children and now the worst massacre by guns in American history, our Republican leaders continue to block debate on commonsense gun safety legislation that is backed by Americans across the spectrum of political ideology. Now we have had our moment of silence, so it is back to business as usual: Members of Congress who call a mass shooting evil and turn around and take cash from the gun lobby. The leadership of this House is so enamored with silence that one of the only policies that they will talk about is silencing guns. Why would you endanger our police officers and families by remaining silent on solutions to reduce gun violence and promote a bill that deregulates silencers?…”