Protecting Our Kids Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, I have heard over and over again we ought to harden our schools. We ought to let every teacher have a gun.
One question that needs to be asked as that argument goes forward: Why? Why do we need to do that?
We need to do that because an 18-year-old was able to buy two AR-15s, go to the school in Uvalde, and shoot up all of the students and teachers--19. That is presumably why we have to harden our schools.
Maybe it is time for us to come to the reality that it is time for us to pass commonsense gun safety legislation. This particular piece of legislation does just that. It doesn't take away the Second Amendment rights.
What it does is to provide every American with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and not having to worry about whether their school has been hardened sufficiently to prevent an 18- year-old with two military-style weapons to enter that school. It is time for us to act. Pass this legislation.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, it is time to act.
On January 19, 1989, my wife Patti and I entered the ICU at San Joaquin General Hospital. We were there to see a five-year-old boy and his parents, who recently fled from war-torn Laos. The boy was fighting for his life. A day earlier, a gunman, armed with an AK 47c, walked onto the playground at Cleveland Park Elementary School in Stockton California and started shooting, killing five children and injuring thirty-two. ``We came here to escape war,'' the boy's parents pleaded. ``How could this happen in America?''
I represented Stockton in the California Senate in 1989 during the Cleveland Park Elementary shooting. After hearing from first responders and victims, I introduced legislation that would become California's assault weapons ban--the first of its kind in the nation. Senator Dianne Feinstein bravely took up the case in Washington, and in 1994 Congress passed and President Clinton signed the federal assault weapons ban into law. Unfortunately, the federal ban expired in 2004 when the Republican-led Congress refused to extend the ban.
Tragically, mass shootings have been on the rise ever since Congress let the assault weapons ban expire. Last month in Texas, days after his 18th birthday, a man purchased two AR-15-style assault rifles and 375 rounds of 5.56-caliber ammunition. Days later, on May 24, 2022, he entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and murdered 19 fourth-grade children and two teachers. America was left heartbroken and appalled by the horrific mass shooting and is asking how a youth who could not buy a beer was able to buy and possess more weapons of war than a trained Marine would carry into a deadly conflict.
Unfortunately, the horror witnessed in Uvalde is not an isolated incident in today's America. There have been over 20 mass shootings in America since the tragedy at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. Mothers, fathers, children, and grandparents have all had their lives cut short and left behind friends and family to mourn their loss. America is experiencing a gun violence epidemic, and we are foolish to think anything will change without immediate action locally and nationally. It is estimated that over 20 million AR-15-style assault rifles are in the homes and streets of America. There have already been 233 mass shootings in America since January 2022. We have to act to change this.
During the 10 years America had a federal assault weapons ban, gun homicide rates declined 49% nationally. Sadly, mass shootings and gun homicides have become more frequent and deadly since the ban expired. There have been more mass shootings in the last two years than in the 10 years under the federal assault weapons ban.
It's time for Congress to reinstate the federal assault weapons ban. H.R. 1808, the Assault Weapons Ban Act, would do just that and institute a buy-back program to remove many of these deadly weapons from our communities. Congress also must also institute a universal background check system with a waiting period, establish a national Red Flag law, ban ghost guns, limit magazine sizes, allow civil lawsuits against gun manufacturers, and institute a stiff tax on all gun sales and assault weapons ammunition. This tax should be used to compensate gun violence victims and increase investments in gun violence research.
The Democratic House of Representatives, with no support from Republicans, has already voted twice this session to pass gun safety legislation. This month, House Democrats will take further action by voting for legislation to protect our communities from gun-wielding men and women bent on murder and violence. The tragic fact is that the Senate Republicans, like their House colleagues, have refused to vote for even the most minimal gun safety legislation and are using the filibuster to block commonsense reforms that will save lives.
The gun violence epidemic cannot be tolerated. It cannot be normalized. We must not re-elect lawmakers and candidates who would rather protect the NRA and their gun-obsessed donors than innocent children and teachers. These shooters are cowards going after the most vulnerable.
As I write this, the memory of that family gathered around that hospital bed at San Joaquin General Hospital haunts me as I envision hundreds of families gathered around hospital beds and coffins weeping and asking, ``How could this happen in America?'' It happens because our courts and too many politicians have chosen to protect gun manufacturers, gun sellers, and gun owners rather than children, teachers, worshipers, and shoppers. In the fall mid-term elections, America must elect candidates who will vote for gun control.
We must be as brave as those children and teachers in that classroom last month. We must stand up to the NRA and its supporters.
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