Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, this is an important bill that addresses a significant, and tragically demonstrated, threat to public safety. Today is the 25th anniversary of the implementation of the Brady Background Check Act. This lifesaving law has served us well, helping to prevent firearms from getting into the hands of those who are legally prohibited from possessing and purchasing them. But we know that some aspects of this law and the system that implements it must be updated and improved. Let's remember what this bill does. All this bill does is give the FBI additional time--gives the NICS system additional time--to complete a background check in the 8 or 9 percent of cases where it is not done within 90 seconds. If you haven't gotten a background check back in 3 days, under this bill, you can't get it automatically, and you can't get the weapon automatically. They have 10 days to do it. If after 10 days they still haven't done it, then you can petition the Attorney General. And if they still don't do it, get your firearm within 10 days. That will save a lot of lives. We hear about mass shootings, but we also should remember that we are not talking about just mass shootings. Thirty-four people a day are killed in this country by guns--34 a day. Every other industrialized country in the world: 90 deaths with guns a year, 120, 170. The United States: 39,000. How are we different?…”