Steve Cohen: “Gabby was a member of the NRA; I don't know if she is now. I passed the right-to-carry bill in Tennessee because I think…”

“Gabby was a member of the NRA; I don't know if she is now. I passed the right-to-carry bill in Tennessee because I think you can have reasonable laws that allow people to defend themselves, but there is reasonableness. And the problem we have had has been reasonableness, and Gabby's effort with her husband Mark is responsible solutions. It is not banning guns; it is responsible solutions. Mental health is certainly one of those issues that has been raised, and yet we in our budgets have cut mental health with the budgets that we have had up here. Some have blamed and the response has been about violent games that children might play or be exposed to. Those weren't around when Charles Joseph Whitman went to the tower in Austin, Texas, and killed 17 people and wounded 32. That wasn't the cause of it. It is something, unfortunately, uniquely American. It is a uniquely American problem. Studies have shown that the U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times greater than the rates in other high-income countries, and they are driven by firearm homicide rates that are 19.7 times higher. In the 27 countries that were studied of higher industrialized countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occur in the United States, and 86 percent of women killed by firearms were United States women, and 87 percent of the children were United States children. The gentleman from Vermont (Mr.…”