Joe Morelle: “I thank Mr. McGovern, my colleague and friend, the distinguished chair of the Committee on Rules, for yielding. Madam…”

“I thank Mr. McGovern, my colleague and friend, the distinguished chair of the Committee on Rules, for yielding. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation, the Protecting Our Kids Act and the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order Act. It is hard to find words to describe the despair we feel in the wake of the recent series of senseless mass shootings in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa, and too many neighborhoods across our country. For the sake of the victims, their families, and all Americans, we cannot rest until we put an end to this vicious cycle. Madam Speaker, there have been more than 200 mass shootings already in 2022. That is more shootings than there have been days of the year. And according to a recent analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine, firearm deaths have now replaced motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death for children in this country. I know the insurmountable pain of losing a child all too well, but losing a child to something entirely avoidable, that is a uniquely devastating kind of tragedy. Madam Speaker, June is gun violence awareness month, but we are already painfully, brutally aware. What we need now is action. That is why this week we are passing legislation to strengthen red flag laws, raise the age for semiautomatic gun purchases, ban bump stocks and high-capacity magazines, and promote safe storage of firearms.…”