Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, this is the last hour that Congress will meet before the 7-week recess that the Republicans scheduled for today. We are going to devote this last hour to focus on an issue incredibly important to the communities of the people we represent and to this country, and that is the issue of gun violence. As you may recall, Mr. Speaker, we had a sit-in where we came to the House floor to protest the congressional inaction in moving forward on sensible gun safety legislation, to bring attention, to break through this logjam and force our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to bring these bills to the floor for an up-or-down vote. We tried motions to recommit and efforts to add these pieces of legislation to bills that were moving as amendments and every mechanism we could to try to force some action because the American people are demanding action--asking--demanding that we do something in the face of the epidemic of gun violence in this country. We talk a lot about gun violence, but I think it is important to recognize this is a uniquely American problem. We kill each other in this country with guns 297 times more than Japan, 49 times more than France, and 33 times more than Israel, just to give you some comparisons. Every day, 297 people in America are shot with a gun, and each day, 89 of these people die. On average, 31 Americans are murdered with guns every day, and 151 are treated for gun assault in an emergency room.…”