Tom Udall: “Thank you for the recognition, Madam President. Last month, on August 22, an 86-year-old grandmother, born and raised in…”

“Thank you for the recognition, Madam President. Last month, on August 22, an 86-year-old grandmother, born and raised in my hometown of Santa Fe, NM, was gunned down while she was shopping at Walmart in El Paso by a White supremacist with an AK-47 style assault weapon. The gunman said he ``wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.'' The shooter told police he had purchased 1,000 rounds of ammunition. Less than 24 hours later, it took the shooter in Dayton, OH, only 32 seconds to kill 10 people and wound 27 others with his .223-caliber, high-capacity rifle with 100-round drum magazines. Had the Dayton police not responded immediately, the numbers of dead and injured in the crowded Dayton downtown area could have been exponentially higher. On August 31, in Odessa, TX, a shooter killed 7 and injured 25, including a 17-month-old girl, who was shot in the face. The shooter had failed a background check in 2014 because a court had found he was mentally unfit to own a gun. He purchased his AR-15 style weapon in a private gun sale, which is not subject to a background check. Assault rifles, often paired with high-capacity magazines, were used to slaughter innocents at Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Aurora, Orlando, San Bernardino, the Sutherland Springs church, and the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 10,552 gun- related deaths this year. That includes 2,681 children and teens. Mass shootings number 300.…”