Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, thank you so very much for the opportunity to discuss with my colleagues a

pending action in the United States Congress and a plea for civility and fairness.

As I do that, let me acknowledge Equal Pay Day and my support, as I've done over the years, of Congresswoman DeLauro's continued acknowledgment and recognizing of the need to finally put an end to disparities in pay for women. That's what America is all about, and I'm delighted to join my colleagues who have already spoken to the idea of ensuring that we have equal pay. I hope we can pass that legislation.

I also want to raise an issue and offer my concern and expression, if you will, of comfort to the students at Lone Star College. Part of Lone Star College is in my congressional district, and I share that with one of my colleagues in Texas. I just wanted to say to all of the parents and to my colleagues: I have children who have finished college. We support our children, all of our children, going to a safe place and being safe and having the ability to be educated in a safe place. So I express great sympathy. We are not sure of the status or whether or not there has been any loss of life. We know that there are persons who are critical, and we are wishing and hoping for their safety.

We do want to determine the facts, and our law enforcement was there expeditiously. Allow me to acknowledge the Lone Star Police, the police in the surrounding area, the Harris County Sheriff's Department, and the first responders who were there as well.

Today, however, I want to acknowledge that we have a pending crisis, and that is that we have the need to pass sensible gun legislation. Why do I call it a ``crisis''? It is because we are moving toward a day that has been designated by the leadership in the Senate that we would be able to vote on sensible gun legislation. Remember, I've said ``sensible'' gun legislation. So, today, I rise to the floor of the House because I think it is crucial--I think it is imperative--that we find that common path to save lives. That's what it really is about. It is a pathway to be able to save lives.

I am delighted to have one of my distinguished colleagues on the floor. She is the former speaker of the Ohio House, the distinguished Congresswoman from Columbus, Ohio, who will share her thoughts about the pending vote that is coming up this Thursday.

Let me just cite for you that we have heard the commitments and sermons and passion after each tragedy. I remember Columbine. I was here, Mr. Speaker, for Columbine. In fact, I was appointed to a school safety select committee to talk about school safety at that time. Obviously, a lot of us were here for Aurora. Virginia Tech, I was here for that as well and then, of course, Newtown and then cases in between. Many of us are here for the tragedies that we see when we go home.

Just this past weekend in Sugar Land, Texas, an individual who was mentally challenged was shot dead in his house when he came out of his bedroom, Mr. Speaker, pointing a gun at law enforcement officers. Many of you know the tragedy that we face in Texas, which we are still mourning. Two prosecutors and a prosecutor's wife--district attorneys in Texas--were shot dead. Individuals were shot dead by someone who should not have had a gun. Tragically, the individual was released and should not have been released; but more importantly, they were able to get a gun through what we understand might have been a straw purchase-- somebody else purchasing the gun for them. So I believe we are no longer at the point when we can have sermons or we can mourn and yet not do something.

Let me thank--I think ``applaud'' is not the appropriate terminology--those parents who flew in Air Force One from Newtown, Connecticut. You can imagine that they are hurting. Tears came to my eyes as I saw them deplane, come down out of Air Force One, knowing that they are still hurting. I heard a quote that said: For some of us, it's months. For those parents, it's one day at a time.

To imagine little ones--5 and 6 years old--whose bodies were riddled, and they are here in the hallways of Congress to be able to ask us: Can we do the right thing that is for the American people?

And I want to answer today a question that I raised: Can we stop the filibuster? Can we resolve the fact that sensible gun legislation does not violate the Second Amendment?

In fact, we protect the Second Amendment. No one has challenged the Second Amendment, and no one has challenged permits for concealed weapons that are in many States. With the tragedy that occurred in Arizona in which someone was using an automatic weapon and had multiple rounds and for those who say, you see, if the good guys had a gun--and in that instance the good guy had a gun and was probably going to shoot the wrong people if someone had not intervened--what we need to do, in essence, is to ensure that we find common ground and do sensible things.

What do I think are sensible things?

Sensible things include universal background checks. I know there are some discussions about family exchanges and one-to-one exchanges among family members. Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, I'm open to reasonable discussions, but we've got to close the gun show loopholes; we've got to close people opening up their trunks on a highway and giving them to someone who is going to wind up shooting in a robbery; or going into an old man's house just like happened in my community last night--shooting an 83-year-old and taking his car--or the incidence, as I indicated, of this individual with mental health concerns; or the bloody killing of a mother's daughter and her granddaughter by what I would say is a crazed ex-husband, who did not need to have a gun.

So isn't it reasonable to think that universal background checks would weed out those who did not need to have them?

We're not going to knock on your door and take any guns from families, but we do hope that you will secure them. I hope that I'll be able to get a vote on H.R. 65, a bill that was taken after an ordinance that I passed in the city of Houston, as a member of the city council-- because we have legislative authority--and, in fact, legislation that's the law of the land in Texas, and that is to hold people responsible for not locking up their guns.

I would be happy to yield for a moment to the distinguished gentlelady from Ohio. I just want to pause on that a moment. Let's think about storing guns. I want to thank her for her legislative prowess. We are so proud that she has already come here ready to go, because anybody who was the minority leader of the Ohio House, if you will, is already ready to go. She is already taking charge on women's issues, and she is taking charge on economic issues. I am very proud to yield to the gentlelady at this time.

I thank the gentlelady for bringing a sense of passion to this debate. So many of us can remember where we were and how incredulous it was when we heard the news coming, and first we thought this is not real. We couldn't be hearing it accurately. Maybe we were hearing the tragedy of six adults, that already was innocent teachers and principals, but we couldn't imagine you were talking about a classroom, that someone would open the door in a recovery mode and see the carnage that one had to be able to look at. Not to be any more graphic, but so much so that, as I understand it, many could not view the situation.

And so I thought it was imperative to come from Houston today, and before I got on the airplane I stopped at the Konia Learning Center for K-6, and I listened to babes talk about knowing Sandy Hook, raising their hands and about wanting to stop gun violence, and understanding that guns in the hands of teachers would not be the way to go. Having little ones in the fifth and sixth grades explain how fearful they would be to have guns with teachers, not because it was the idea that our teachers are not ones that are loving, but we know what happens with human nature and accidents, guns being taken out of drawers or purses or pockets and what can happen.

Yes, I believe we can have common agreement on increasing school resource officers, however school districts would like to use them. We have very fine police departments for many of the school districts that I represent; and do you know what those chiefs of police told me in an earlier hearing that I had in my district, not one of them, university chiefs of police or school district chiefs of police, wanted to arm school personnel and teachers in the classroom to be able to protect our children. Those were the chiefs of police. I didn't put words in their mouths, and they wanted it to be known that they are the responsible ones for security, not to be able to arm those who in essence would be responsible for shooting a gun, making a decision when to shoot, and then not making a decision right and causing havoc, causing themselves to be shot, or causing someone else to be shot.

As a matter of fact, at a press conference I had on the anniversary Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4 in my district, because we had been having these gun informational press conferences to raise the understanding, we have been working with a group by the name of Moms Demanding Action, thousands of moms across America, we were with them on Thursday, and then we were at the Lighthouse Church this past Sunday when Moms Demanding Action went to the pulpit, honored and recognized Pastor Henderson to talk about Moms Demanding Action to prevent gun violence.

But this little school that I went to, I said to them that I would come and give their message on the floor of the House, that I would tell the President that I was in this school where these children are so bright, private school that it was, alongside a public school, these children spoke well about their fear of gun violence, the gun violence that they see around them and that they want to be in a place where they are safe, and guns they feel do not make them safe.

So I got motivated, and I thank the Senators for informing me, a letter that I received March 22, 2013, from Senator Paul, Senator Cruz, and Senator Mike Lee, and they have now grown to 13 Senators. I know they have good hearts, but the language that I want to read specifically says:

We will oppose a motion to proceed to any legislation that

will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions.

You see, that's wrong in and of itself because we're talking about sensible gun legislation. I don't want to restrict anything. I would like to take that word out of the vocabulary of sensible gun legislation, because I will not restrict you from getting a gun if you pass a background check. I will not restrict you from having guns in your home, but I will hold you responsible for guns that are not locked up. I will not restrict you from hunting. I will not restrict you as a sportsperson. I will not restrict you for a legitimate concealed weapons permit, but I will restrict that dastardly person who went to the door of a Colorado corrections chief and shot him dead because he had a gun that he should not have because we don't enforce, which we should, but add to the idea of preventing straw purchases for that individual for getting a gun because someone purchased the gun for him. Mr. Speaker, that can be blocked.

And the idea of storage, my friends, I'm talking about gun locks. Maybe somebody has a gun lock manufacturing company in their district. Just think what would happen if folks have to lock up their guns, at least the ones that are classic, the AR-15s or the assault weapons that you already have. No one is coming to get those. But the guns that the young man had in Newtown, if only they had been locked up. Many people don't speak of it, but I think she deserves to be mentioned, his mother, who I know had to be a loving mother. I know she cared. She recognized the disturbed individual that he was, and maybe it might have gone another way. Maybe there should have been some other response to his situation, but all you can say is that mother was trying. But look at her, dead in her bed. Guns that were open to someone who was challenged.

So, Mr. Speaker, I can't imagine why we would ignore some of the numbers that I'm getting ready to share with you. But before I do that, let me raise again, if I can highlight what simple legislation that we're asking for: require universal background checks to keep guns out of dangerous hands. Let me be very clear: dangerous hands.

Ban military-style assault weapons.

Limit high-capacity magazines. That was the kind of magazine that was used tragically in Arizona. The individual could keep shooting and shooting, and the only way he was stopped was when he had to reload. Just imagine, 15 rounds, 20 rounds, no reloading. And the individual in Newtown, 155 rounds in 5 minutes before he stopped, taking the lives of so many.

Let me share with you these statistics that impact urban loss of life, rural loss of life, just the enormous tragedy. Take the incident of a rogue cop in California that wound up with weapons of war until he was finally caught, how many people he killed and how many more he could have killed. He had assault-type weapons.

If you speak to the law enforcement community, particularly right after Newtown, people became gunned up to the extent that when I spoke to my law enforcement, they indicated to me that they couldn't even find any guns, that people had bought guns so, so much.

Let me share with you some of these numbers about gun violence. First of all, the number of persons killed by guns since Newtown, 440 in the United States. I'm sure that number is down since the time these statistics were presented: 103 in Texas, 21 in Houston, 57 this month alone; 48,000 people killed annually in the United States. If I might remind you, over 1 million persons, Americans, have been killed by guns since John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated.

So let me remind you of that list. John F. Kennedy, assassinated by a gun in 1963; Bobby Kennedy, assassinated by a gun in 1968; Martin Luther King, assassinated by a gun in 1968; and Ronald Reagan, attempted assassination in his first term, and the critical and devastating injury to his press secretary, Mr. Brady, who has committed himself to gun safety, again, not to take your guns away.

I thank you, Mr. Brady. We have had an opportunity to work together. I thank you for what was done, and certainly your legacy of commitment. I thank that legacy.

Then, of course, let me thank Mr. Bloomberg, who is one that has shown his passion, so much so that he has received criticism. Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg. Thank you for standing up and saying that those who would stop gun legislation that is sensible, that they have to have their story told to those around the country and those in their district, for we're not asking for anything. We're just asking for fairness, just an up-or-down vote.

Let me share with you these numbers that I think are devastating. In 1 year, on average, almost 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun. In 1 year, 31,000--and this is from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence--31,593 people died from gun violence and 66,769 people survived gun injuries; 12,179 people murdered; 44,466 people shot in an attack; 18,223 people who killed themselves; 3,031 people who survived a suicide attempt with a gun.

Let me just stop for a moment. How tragic it is that someone would think that the only way out of their misery is by a gun. And it is well known by these statistics that if a gun is near you, if you are near a gun, if you are near a gun, then that leaves you more open to using that gun for violence against others or violence against yourself.

If you make it easy, rather than giving these people mental health services--which I think should go hand in hand with sensible gun legislation, and that's why I'm supporting a number of initiatives and cosponsored initiatives by Carolyn McCarthy, because it is important to find a balance and to be able to work on issues that would balance the needs of our community and mental health services, but also the needs of our community in being protected from gun violence.

I want to restore the Centers for Disease Control's ability that was taken away a few Congresses ago by people who really don't understand sensible gun legislation. They stopped the Centers for Disease Control from doing the research and gathering the statistics on what violence does to America, what the medical cost is, what the psychological cost is. We want to reinstate that so that we can make important decisions.

When I was with these children, one of the things that comes up in the idea of teen violence or the loss of life is that teens pick up guns 87 percent when they are bullied or when they feel someone has hurt them, said words to them, because the gun is accessible. They bring the gun to school, they have a gun, or they engage in gang violence.

Don't separate gang violence and say it's just a bunch of gangbangers. It's gangbangers who are kids who have guns. And the young man that I brought to the State of the Union was a redeemed gangbanger, was shot at 15. He's here today, at 21, 22, about to get married, and shuns guns. But guns were accessible to him. He was already shot at in a drive-by. And then after he's shot at in a drive-by, then there was a point when they got him.

Don't condemn the gangbangers. They've got guns that are trafficked, that are not enforced, that are straw purchased, and they come into places even that have strong gun laws. Why? Because we don't have sensible gun legislation.

And yes, I'm going to agree with my friends on the other side of the aisle, my Republican friends. Let's enforce the gun laws that we have. Who would run away from that? That's a sensible proposition.

Put a resolution on the floor of the House. Let's enforce the gun laws that we have. But join me in voting for universal gun background checks to close the gun show loopholes.

I mentioned this idea of suicide, and let me just finish on this enormous, terrible number. How many of us have read articles, have seen over the last couple of days tragedies that have occurred that have been publicized nationally?

All I can say is, you have a person who is disturbed, who has given up on life, who doesn't have a connection to faith, cannot find their faith leader, cannot get a hug from their family member, and all they think they can do is commit suicide, and they've got a gun.

I venture to say there's probably very limited numbers of those who take a knife and stab themselves. And yes, there are pills. But they have a gun because nobody was there to stop them, they weren't able to get mental health services and they've got a gun. 592 people were killed unintentionally, and 8,610 were shot unintentionally but survived.

There was one time in Houston where every time school was out, little ones, 2 years old, 3 years old, 4 years old, teenagers, accidentally shooting themselves, playing with a gun, taking the gun from under the mattress. Guns not stored.

That's why we passed that legislation in Texas to hold adults responsible for a child that gets a gun and injures themselves, kills somebody, or kills themselves. That's the least we can do for our children.

Over 1 million have been killed with guns in the United States since 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated.

And then U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in 22 other populous, high-income countries combined, despite similar nonlethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the United States is 19.5 times higher.

Mr. Speaker, we're not gaining anything by being gunned up. Among the 23 populous, high-income countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States.

On Thursday, not only should we get a vote, not only should there be no filibuster, but we should win that vote. Win it in the name of somebody in your congressional district that died unfairly because someone who should not have had the gun had it. And I can venture to tell you that background checks will have a sizable impact.

Now, somebody said in 1994, when we passed the assault weapons ban, that it didn't do anything. Oh, there's a big debate. There's a tit for tat. But it is documented that the numbers of killings by assault weapons went down. Of course you can find other ways to kill people, but the utilization of assault weapons went down. That's a victory. That's a victory.

When I had this listening session with my little ones at the Konia Learning Academy, we had pictures of these weapons. Do you know that these little ones that were pre-K could point out that these were machine guns? Little ones. What are we doing to our kids?

They should call it a carrot because they've never seen one. With the violence on TV, we want to talk about that, and violence around them, and the gun talk and the killings on national TV, what do you expect?

Wouldn't it be nice if the headlines came out on Thursday, the Senate makes the first step, sensible gun legislation? Wouldn't that be good? That we came together and we did something that spoke to the anguish and pain?

I was here for 9/11, a memory that none of us will ever forget. And the one thing that I will compare to what is happening with these families is the 9/11 families. The Congress felt compelled, after its own mourning and the loss in the Pentagon and the loss in Pennsylvania, we just felt compelled that we had to do something, that the pain of these families scattered all over America, we had to answer them.

We obviously suffered. I remember standing on the steps singing God Bless America. But we put away any opposition to issues that had to be addressed. We put forward a Patriot Act at that time that was bipartisan. We worked in the Judiciary Committee. We handled the privacy issues, because we felt that this was a time for America to shine.

Well, I believe this is the time for America to shine. Gun violence impacts society in countless ways: medical costs, in the cost of the criminal justice system, and security precautions such as metal detectors and reductions in quality of life because of fear of gun violence. These impacts are estimated to cost U.S. citizens--Mr. Speaker, you've got to get up out of your chair on this one--estimated to cost--with a smile on my face, because you stand up and I need to sit down because it's just knocking me down--a hundred billion dollars. And that was 2000. And so it's soaring in medical costs, in fear, in security.

What are we going to do about the enormity of gun violence? Where there are more guns, there are more deaths. An estimated 41 percent of gun-related

homicides and 94 percent of gun-related suicides would not have occurred in the same circumstances had no guns been present. Higher household gun ownership correlates with higher rates of homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings.

Mr. Speaker, we have within our power to be able to move forward on sensible gun legislation. I will be asking my colleagues to join me in a letter to send to my friends on the other side of this body to be able to listen to our voices as fellow legislators. And then, as well, Mr. Speaker, I hope the voices of America will ring. I know that my phone will ring for those who are saying, They're snatching our guns away. And I'm going to have a smile on my face because they have a right to express themselves.

But right now we need to put aside our individual political futures, because I believe that when you do the right thing, your future will be bright. And some child will say, Look at America. Look at the red, white, and blue. Look at the country that stands for values that we all are created equal. They didn't come to take away guns. They came to enforce good laws. They came to ensure that guns are not exploited, that loopholes are not walked through and become open caves, and that people are safer in their schools, their homes, their places of worship.

Just think about that. A pulpit. Ministers in my State have been shot dead by guns of disturbed members--because they have guns. And let's make, Mr. Speaker, the mental health system a parallel effort to be able to ensure the safety of us all.

Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful that this brief discussion--and if I may, how much time is there remaining?

Thank you very much.

I'm so glad the Speaker was responding on that hundred billion dollars. It probably got him out of his chair. I think we're allowed to say those kinds of things on the floor.

I will have a few more points that I do want to make. The number of a hundred billion dollars is certainly a lot, but I want to spend some time on this issue of gun trafficking and to speak about how gun trafficking can be something that we can find ways to come together.

Gun trafficking is dastardly because in jurisdictions like Washington, D.C., strong gun laws; New York, strong gun laws; the State of Connecticut, strong gun laws; and now Colorado, strong gun laws. And my heart goes out to them for the loss that they experienced with the shooting of their head of corrections in a terrible manner, being shot on his doorstep. Also, the district attorney and his wife that were so loved and the other district attorney that was so loved that was shot here in Texas. That comes out of criminals with guns that they should not have. And so forcing a review of our gun laws to stop gun trafficking and to pass legislation that stands in the gap and that speaks to straw purchases--using someone else--and holding people very responsible for doing that is a smart way to go.

The Mayors Against Illegal Guns have a very important point, and that is, when you pass the universal background check as a systematic way to stop felons, domestic abusers, and the seriously mentally ill, that's the answer to people that say it doesn't make a difference. Criminals and other prohibited purchasers can avoid background checks by buying firearms from unlicensed private sellers. That's the back of the trunk. That's the gun shows. Often at gun shows are anonymous online transactions.

If my recollection is correct, the shooter at Aurora got his guns online. How tragic. And in the course of those shootings, we know that little ones lost their lives in that theater. What a terrible thing to come out for a joyous occasion, an exciting night, fiction but fun, and you lose your life and you never get home.

I heard something today that I thought was important. Parents who sent their children to school that morning in Newtown were sending their children to school--it was December 14--with the expectation for celebrating holidays like Hanukkah and Christmas. They were looking forward to hugs and toys. They were looking forward to family dinners. They were looking forward to picking those children up at the end of the day. Mr. Speaker, they did not get a chance to do that.

And so when you have background checks, certainly in the instance of Newtown, a different set of circumstances, both dealing with mental illness and the access to guns. But I tell you what it will do with background checks. It will lessen the horror of those involved in criminal activities.

The private sale loophole undermines the background check system by allowing millions of buyers to avoid background checks simply by going to private sellers. We've got to fix that. And we've got to hold the data. We've got to make sure that our law enforcement can check a national data system so that those who would perpetrate violence cannot go from State to State.

I know that I wanted to pass similar legislation on DNA data for child predators so that a person cannot go from State to State. Now we have the technology and we have the ability to protect rights. But if you are involved in criminal activity and you're in the database on guns, your rights are lessened because we have to save lives.

The Internet has created a vast marketplace for guns, where millions of buyers and sellers can easily identify one another and conduct firearms transactions with no supervision whatsoever. Nearly 12 years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that there were 80 online auction sites and approximately 4,000 other sites of gun sales. No control whatsoever. The private sellers are literally involved in-- maybe not to their own choosing--those guns getting out into the arena and being utilized by others to do harm.

So this is a time when we don't need a filibuster. What we need is a debate on the pros and cons of sensible gun legislation and, finally, a vote that would move us to respond to the pain of so many Americans.

Why shouldn't this be a Democratic and Republican effort? Once the Senate votes on something that has substance to it, why shouldn't our Speaker, Mr. Boehner, also put it on the floor and not block it? The reason is because there was regular order on the Senate side. It went through committee.

But in the instance of Republicans, listen to a 2010 survey by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who found that 82 percent of U.S. gun owners, including 74 percent of NRA members, support criminal background checks for all gun sales. What more do we want? What are we saying here? That we can't come together on a nonwatered-down gun background check?

Let me speak to why I think that's so important. We have officers around here. This is like a little city. We have our Capitol Police. They wear the uniform. They're here to protect. Law enforcement officers all over America--school law enforcement officers, county and city, villages, departments of public safety, highway patrol, drug enforcement, ATF, FBI, men and women in the United States military--are here to protect. My friends from the Texas Air National Guard, my friends from the National Guard, they're here to protect.

What happens when they lose their lives through some untoward violence that's not on a battlefield somewhere, but right here in their own hometown? What happens when an officer has fallen because someone who shouldn't have a gun illegally has a gun, and we've done nothing about it?

Close the gun show loopholes, stop the gun trafficking, and, most of all, get us universal access to gun checks and background checks. Everybody should be required.

I know that we can't see these clearly, but there is a whole load of guns, and it says handguns offered by a private seller in Tennessee, handguns licensed by a licensed dealer--not checking anybody, though. You got the money, you can just show up. I remember walking into a gun show and seeing children walking around unaccompanied. I believe they should not be able to walk around at a gun show unaccompanied. Long guns being sold by a private seller in Columbus, Ohio. This is what's happening all over America. Probably right, as I'm standing on the floor of the House, that is

what's happening. That's why I support Mayor Bloomberg and his commitment to this whole idea of sensible gun legislation. There are currently 18 million assault weapons in circulation, and I don't think most of them are in the hands of the United States military.

I am just going to add these points and come to a close, Mr. Speaker, because this is what pushes the wrong direction; this parts us away from each other. We can't be friends. We can't talk about sensible legislation. And I hate to say it, I don't know how much carnage we have to see. I don't know how much we have to see, how many sirens we have to hear for those of us who live in urban areas, police cars running after ambulances because there's been someone that's been shot.

What I would say to you is listen to the voice of a victim that I met just a couple of days ago. I just want to put this myth out. She was a teacher coming home late at night and somebody came up and said, get out of the car. She didn't know what to do. She didn't get out of the car. She bent down, and that person shot her in the legs. I asked the question, if she had a gun, does she think that she would be able to do better. She said, no, I was too scared; I wouldn't know what to do.

My friends, don't fool yourself that having a gun is going to make it better for you. We've got to lessen criminals having guns; we've got to have background checks; we've got to close the gun show loopholes and people selling guns out of the back of their trunks on a highway somewhere outside of a gun show.

More guns don't lead to more murders. This is myth number one. A survey by researchers at the Harvard University School of Public Health found strong statistical support for the idea that even if you control for poverty levels, more people die from gun homicides in areas of higher rates of gun ownership. You've got a gun, you may be in jeopardy.

The Second Amendment prohibits strict gun control. We all know that that is not supported by the Supreme Court and that we're not talking about taking guns away. We're talking about regulating guns. As many people have said, we regulate insurance. We ask you to have a registration and a driver's license for a car--that can be a deadly weapon--and we have you register it. And we have you have, if you will, a license.

State-level gun controls haven't worked. Scholars Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander recently studied State-to-State variations in gun homicides. They found that firearm deaths are significantly lower in States with stricter gun control legislation.

Myth number four: we only need better enforcement of the law; we don't need new laws. We passed several laws. Yes, we need enforcement; but it is well known that you need to keep guns out of the hands of those who would do harm, and you need to have universal background checks in order to stop the criminals from getting guns, and you need to work on the mental health services so that those individuals cannot have guns. In some States they have that. We're not blanketing everyone; but in certain instances we need to be able to protect those individuals, protect their families from the crazed person, the violent abuser, the domestic abuser who goes and violates a restraining order and has a gun--because they just bought the gun because there's no background check. And you can't check if they have a restraining order.

Sensible gun regulation is prohibitively unpopular. We've already heard of the large percentages from Republican pollster, Mr. Luntz, about the percentage of individuals--Republicans, all Americans, NRA members--who believe in universal background checks, not arming parents and arming, if you will, the teachers who are there to have a pencil and a pen and a chart and to talk about reading, writing, and arithmetic.

So I am humbled today to have the opportunity to speak to my colleagues, but I am humbled by the fact that we live in a democracy. There is something called a ``filibuster''; it's a procedure that's used--not in this body--simply we've got a bunch of Members on the floor that talk, talk, talk, one after another. But we don't have the procedure; the Senate does. As I indicated, initially three of our friends, and now 13, I would ask them--and I would ask the minority leader--I would ask them not to engage.

I would ask the other body to work with us. I would ask the other body to hear our cry. I would ask the other body to think of those who as we speak are being shot by a gun in America by someone who shouldn't have it. I'm asking them to think of the little children from one end of America to the other who were shot with a gun.

For us Washingtonians--and I say that because I am in Washington a lot of the time here in the United States Congress--remember the sniper of a few years ago, the frightening atmosphere of a sniper, a young man and his father; guns they should not have had; killing innocent people along the highways and byways of this region. The sniper.

That's what my message is today, that we have no time--no time--for a filibuster. We may have time for prayers. We may have time for encouragement. We have time for common sense. We still have time for a vote that will pass. And we have time for the House to take up sensible gun legislation.

We still have time to save the lives of little babies. We still have time to save an innocent woman who may be subject to domestic violence. We still have time. We still have time to stop the gang-banger. We still have time to stop the criminal that may have come into your house or come into a bank or accost you on the street. We still have time to keep the guns out of their hands. We still have time.

Who is going to answer the cry to stop the filibuster and stop the foolishness? I ask my colleagues: If it is not us, then who? If it is not now, then when? In the memory of John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America; in the memory of his brother, Bobby Kennedy, former Attorney General of the United States of America; Martin Luther King, in his memory, a man of peace and nonviolence; and President Ronald Reagan, who lived, if it is not in the common sense of those leaders of our Nation and the needs of the children and families across America, then whose voices will we heed?

There is still time for commonsense legislation, and I might say that we should demand, stand up for a vote on this Thursday. I hope our voices--not mine, but our voices--are heard.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for allowing this time to debate on the floor of the House, and I yield back the balance of my time.

U.S Senate,

Washington, DC, March 22,2013.

Dear Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, We, the

undersigned, intend to oppose any legislation that would

infringe on the American people's constitutional right to

bear arms, or on their ability to exercise this right without

being subjected to government surveillance.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution protects citizens'

right to self-defense. It speaks to history's lesson that

government cannot be in all places at all times, and

history's warning about the oppression of a government that

tries.

We will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation

that will serve as a vehicle for any additional gun

restrictions.

Rand Paul, M.D.,

Ted Cruz,

Mike Lee.

Let me thank the Speaker for his courtesies and the leader for her courtesies for the opportunity to share on the floor of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I would offer to say to my colleagues who spoke earlier that we all recognize that the Affordable Care Act has generated opportunities for 9 million Americans, and it is growing. Let's find common ground. We have a law that is legal and affirmed by the United States Supreme Court, but it is affirmed by what is most important: hungry Americans needing good health care to save their lives and the lives of their families.

Frankly, I believe that there needs to be security for all of the Web sites of Federal agencies, rather than have bills that appear to be attacking the Affordable Care Act again, after 46 attempts to repeal it. Let's find a way that we can work together to secure extensively the entire Web sites carefully that are utilized by the Federal Government.

But I have the opportunity and I want to cover, Mr. Speaker, an array of issues that I think are important as we begin this new year. I do want to wish everyone a happy new year. But as I do so, since I come from Houston, and have been a member of the House Science Committee for 12 years before moving to Homeland Security, I want to congratulate NASA and the White House.

First, NASA, for the miraculous and unbelievable space walk just about a week or so ago by two outstanding astronauts. Space walks are not often done. They are much more difficult--in fact, extremely difficult--than one might imagine, as you watched what seemed to be a beautiful effort of activity in space.

I want to congratulate them. That is science. That is genius. That is what these astronauts trained for. They are our neighbors. I was with them over the holiday. I want them to know on the floor of the House that this was outstanding work.

I want to congratulate the White House because, as many of us have advocated over the years, my colleague who is no longer in the House, Congressman Nick Lampson, and myself signed many letters to extend the life of the space station. I am very pleased that it is now to extend the space station for 4 years. I am optimistic when that 4 years is nearing, there will be another assessment that there is more life in the international space station--opportunity for major research, including, when I was on the Science Committee, cancer research in particular, heart disease, stroke, aging. Our former Senator, John Glenn, took a second ride into space as a member of the United States Senate to test space travel on those who are aging.

Congratulations to NASA and the international space station. It speaks to the genius of America. It speaks to the aspirations and hopes of children around the world. It focuses on the emphasis in the United States on science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM. Teachers continue to emphasize to our children the importance of those disciplines, and it gives us great hope.

And that is a lot of what I will talk about tonight: hope. For when we think of hope, we must have a broad definition that it includes all Americans. In fact, I believe from the very moment of the dumping of the tea in the Boston Harbor, the Founding Fathers of this Nation, in spite of all of the possible inequities like the holding of slaves, had hope. They left their places of persecution because they had hope.

And we have grown through the ages, from the 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, the 20th century, and the 21st century. It has all been around hope. We were hopeful the turn of the century, even as World War I was flaring. We were hopeful even as the 1928-1929 collapse was happening. We were hopeful even with the horrific, heinous acts of World War II, with the interment and the Holocaust. But people were hoping that we would save people and get out of the dastardliness of that.

We were hopeful in the fifties. We as African Americans were hopeful as we marched in the 1950s and 1960s. We were hopeful with the Thurgood Marshall argument before the United States Supreme Court on Brown v. Board of Education. We were hopeful.

Now we come to a situation of wealth inequality. We must assure those who fall in that gap of where they are not where they should be, through no fault of their own, but because of this increasing gap.

For example, the wages of those in the top 1 percent--those making $352,900-plus--their income grew 281 percent from 1979 to 2007. For the bottom 20 percent, their income grew 16 percent, those making less than $20,000. For those making $34,000, it grew 23 percent. For those making $34,000 to $50,000, 25 percent.

There is wealth inequality in this Nation.

Some would argue some of that is inherited wealth, some of that is capital gains, some of that is stock revenue. It is wealth inequality.

I am moved by the words of Justice Brandeis:

We can either have democracy in this country, or we can

have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we

can't have both.

That is not snatching wealth from someone who has worked hard. It is to even up the opportunity for that gap--281 percent growth for the 1 percent, and numbers like 23 and 25 and 38 percent for the working middle class. We need to do better.

And so I think we need to start by stop quarreling about the unemployment benefits extension. We did it under President Bush, with no offsets, and, as well, for about 5 years with President Bush even acknowledging that when people work and invest in this Nation and they fall on bad times, give them a transitional bridge.

Some would say our unemployment is going down. My friends, on the chronically unemployed, it is the highest it has ever been, at 2.6 percent. Now that is growing to 1.3 million in 2013. It will go up to 3.64 million.

So I am not asking for the whole piece. I had a bill that said 1 year. Let's extend it for 3 months on an emergency basis and then begin to discuss how we can fund it.

There are 68,000 jobless workers that are in Texas, and we expect that as it grows in 2014 to 1.9 million and more--as I said 3.6 million and growing--it will be 106,900 Texans.

I have spoken to some of those Texans, and I have heard the stories of a welder who liked his job, was laid off, through no fault of his own, and needs this transitional funding so that he can be presentable for a job. Or a person in technology, administrative assistant, or somebody who worked in home health.

I believe that we have a legitimate basis for the creation of 200,000 jobs--a real dent in the economy and an acknowledgment that the unemployment rate in the United States in 2012 was 8.1 percent. States range from 3.1 percent, to Texas, which is 6.8 percent. Missouri is 6.9 percent. We have 5 percent and 5.7 percent. We have 7 percent in Alaska. Delaware is 7.1 percent. It goes all over the gamut. The individuals are not able to find work because for every job, there are three persons looking.

It generates into inequality of wealth. There is nothing that will refute this except for a transitional hand-up for those unemployed. And, yes, job creation.

My good friends, the Republicans, say they passed a bill on job creation last year. Yes, they did. And we have a bill on job creation, the Jobs bill. That seems to me a compromise in the making. That seems to me an opportunity for us to sit around the table and talk about technology and then talk about other aspects of job creation, because people have to be trained and retrained.

This week I will introduce a bill that is studied not as a bill introduced by a Democrat, but studied for the substance of the bill, called the New Chance for a New Start in Life Act of 2014. This is where you invest in people. It creates an opportunity for someone who is unemployed and still on their unemployment benefit--remember, they have worked and this is unemployment insurance--to get a stipend for certain accredited specific job training that ties to the market.

My friends, all of us are going to say, Well, they are going to take their money and they are going to be on the basket weaving training program; or they are going to take a truck training program, but they have no license. Accredited programs so that person can provide for their family and their training can be paid for.

And we are going to work through accredited social service agencies. We are going to partner with cities and nonprofit agencies for apprenticeships and internships. Every job is not an apprenticeship. We want to work with our friends in the trade and the labor community.

Unions have done well for America. Thank you for increasing our minimum wages and conditions in the workforce. Let's find a way to work together, but sometimes it is an internship in an office or an engineering company.

And then we have to provide training and employment enhanced for veterans. There are 22,000 veterans included in that large number of those who are needing transitional funds. We need to work with community colleges and Historically Black Colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions to be able to find a way to get chronically unemployed persons in the workplace, investing, paying taxes, and loving it every moment.

I have talked to folks who said that the most they want for Christmas and the new year is to have the alarm clock go off at 6 a.m. and jump out of bed to go to work. How are we going to cut these people off? What sense does it make?

And then it is important to note that added to the component of problems that we have is that poverty in America still exists. The 49 million poverty rate for African Americans and Hispanics greatly exceeds the national average. In 2010, 27.4 percent of Blacks and 26.6 percent of Hispanics were poor, compared to 9.9 percent of non-Hispanic Whites and 12.1 percent of Asians.

That is not targeting quotas. It is going where the problem is.

You know where else the problem is? Single women of any race, head of households. In 2010, 31.6 percent of households headed by single women were poor, while 15.8 percent of households headed by single men and 6.2 percent of married-couple households are in poverty.

In my district, 18 percent of households in the State of Texas, first in 2009 and 2001, ranked second in the highest rate of food insecurity. In my district, 151,000-plus families live in Poverty.

To the extent that we can't solve that problem, that is not shameful. We have seen the poverty gap close nationwide, even though we know children still live in poverty. President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who spoke on the war on poverty on January 8, said, We must live for hope, as I paraphrase.

And I worked diligently with programs from VISTA to Medicaid to Medicare to job-training programs to infrastructure programs to programs allowing young people to go to college. I am a witness of all of those programs. Frankly, I worked in the President's summer youth program in the hard rumble area of my youth.

And I have seen Members mention in the last 24 hours how they participated in the same programs. They happen now to be Members of the United States Congress. I would like to know how many Americans would call in the Congress and say, I am a beneficiary of the war on poverty, the Great Society.

Why can't we find common ground to recognize that we can be efficient, but we can also invest in people?

So I raise an ancient philosopher in my remarks on this question:

Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one

the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war

with one another.

Plato said that.

And the question is can we now, in the 21st century, rebut that. Can we find a way to have hopeful people who are poor work with hopeful people who are rich and find a way to enrich both of them, to give them work and to make them shining examples of what America is all about?

Laying that groundwork, I hope my colleagues will join me on the Second Chance Job Act that I have just introduced that will go alongside the kinds of incentives in the jobs bill that President Obama has offered and the bill that was passed here in the House.

Why can't we both be on the same page of caring about getting a bill passed that both bodies will look at favorably, taking pieces? Why can't we get back to legislating again, giving and taking, making amendments, finding out what my friend on the other side of aisle wants, finding out what we want here, having amendments being accepted, making the bill one that is not only through the regular order of the committee, but here on the floor of the House, getting amendments that would satisfy and work with all of us?

I think there is more work to do in many, many areas, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to continue now to be able to offer some of my concerns.

Last evening, on CNN, there was a recounting of a young lady, tragically, who attempted suicide, a young bullying victim, first tragically being raped, not being believed, and ultimately coming forward. I am sort of summarizing the facts. And then because this person was a star athlete in one of the Midwestern States, the town turned on this young girl and her friend, bullying everywhere.

And I think it is time for America and the Congress to make a statement on it, a simple statement. I am not asking for much, but I have introduced H.R. 2585, the Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Reauthorization and the Bullying Prevention and Intervention Act of 2013. You will be surprised how simple it is:

To be able to allow groups from all over America, 501(c)(3)s that may be under the jurisdiction of faith institutions, youth groups, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, tennis clubs, social service agencies, schools, to put their best practices forward and how they believe they can stem the tide of bullying, what kind of intervention, and add to that, cyber bullying. It also provides for gang prevention programs, turn our children toward socially beneficial pathways.

I had one Member say to me, What would be wrong with the Congress making a unified statement that they want to prevent bullying and they want to intervene?

That is the simple process, four corners of the bill. And research studies have shown that approximately 25 percent of school bullies will be convicted of a criminal offense in their adult years.

I believe in intervention. And I would say to my friends who are experts, all of the advocacy groups, I believe it would be very important if we came together and had this one statement that came out of the Congress, that we want parents and schools and communities and baseball clubs and basketball clubs and football leagues to understand that we have all got to pour our energy into letting children know that to live healthy and free of intimidation is a good thing, that have your fun somewhere else.

I don't know whether bullying led to this absurd game of knockout, but we have got to take a stand alongside of the personal intervention that comes about through the normal community ways.

Just for the record, it is important to note, 30 percent of U.S. students in grades 6 through 10 are involved in moderate or frequent bullying as bullies, victims, or both. According to the results of the first national survey on this subject, bullying is increasingly viewed as an important contributor to youth violence, including homicide and suicide. One out of four kids is bullied. The Justice Department says that in this month, one out of every four kids will be abused by another youth.

Surveys show that 77 percent of students are bullied mentally, verbally, and physically. We have to find a way to make a national statement. What better way than a Congress that is the symbol of the most powerful Nation in the world and the most powerful lawmaking body.

Why is it so difficult to pass something as simple as that?

It does not stop us from looking down the future when we have many more resources to deal with to put a huge amount of funding in it once best practices--once we give the spark plug and get people excited about our Federal Government is concerned about this, let's look for enhanced best practices. Let's make a statement on this,

which I think is enormously important.

I want to quickly, and I hope, as we debate these issues on the floor, that there will be Members who will want to have a conversation. I want to say, as well, that many of us have experienced violence in our communities. I am going to discuss that a little later, but I want to say it now. I have had a number of incidences of violence, through knives, through guns, in my own school districts in Houston.

Even though we know that does not define our school districts, I say to them, when you have an incident like that, it is not a reflection on you, but it is a signal and a sign that the community must come together. We will look forward in Houston to putting together a Stop Violence Commission under the 18th Congressional District, bringing people from the faith community, bringing other leaders, working with the Mothers Demand Action, MDA, who have come out every moment to stop gun violence, working with mothers and fathers who have had to bury their children, funerals that I attended over the holiday or before that time frame. I want to tell that mother whose son's funeral that I attended, I have not forgotten. We will embrace you, and we will find a way that we can sit together and make a difference.

Let me switch now for a moment--I will come back to that issue--and remind us of the humanity of comprehensive immigration reform. I said that I had any number of issues that I think are weighing on many of us as Members of Congress, weighing on those of us who are doers and want to do, and I would venture to say that that is this entire body. But we are getting stalled, and for what reason, I don't know.

But my hometown paper was eager to review H.R. 1417, which is a bipartisan product that has come out of the Subcommittee on Border Security and Maritime Security, my colleague from Michigan, and out of the full committee, with the chairman and ranking member of the full committee, a bill that has now been joined under H.R. 15, to put a bill forward in the House.

And I would just ask, why can't we end the suffering of so many, end the divide and deportation of so many families, in the thousands, and begin to look, as the faith community and business community, educational community, health community, research community, business community wants us to do?

Comprehensive immigration reform, Texas is a prime example: 16.4 percent of Texans are foreign born; 42 percent are Latino or Asian; 33.2 percent of immigrants in the State are naturalized U.S. citizens; 11.8 percent are registered voters or new Americans; 87.7 percent of children with immigrant parents are U.S. citizens; 75 percent of children with immigrant parents are English proficient; 70 percent of naturalized citizens have a high school diploma; 61,511 foreign students contribute $1.4 billion to the State economy, and they make up 21 percent of the workforce; 9 percent of the workforce is unauthorized.

We need to get people from underneath the underground economy. We need families able to walk the streets together, mothers not being dragged out of homes. We need the DREAM Act children to be able to raise their heads as U.S. citizens. We need access to citizenship.

This coming Monday, I will gather at Catholic Charities with people from all over the community in Houston, Texas, and we will be standing together, raising our voices as humane Americans. We will be speaking about Latinos and Asians. We will be speaking about Africans. We will be speaking about people from the Caribbean, people from Europe, people from Canada, people from Ireland. We will be speaking about people from all over the world that happen to be in Houston, Texas.

It is time to pass comprehensive immigration reform and pass it now.

I mentioned very quickly that I would be going through a number of issues, but let me just turn to the issue of guns.

Let me pause for a moment and find out how much time I have, Mr. Speaker.

Let me quickly mention that we must stop the violence of guns. When we think about 5,740 children being killed by guns, I would like, again, for this Congress to look at H.R. 2812, which is a bill that deals with stand your ground that we have not addressed from the Trayvon Martin case.

And I would like them, also, to quickly look at gun safety and gun access prevention, H.R. 65. I find that a way of being able to come together and keeping guns out of the hands of underage children and teaching gun safety to parents and children.

I want to also join with my colleague on the Foreign Affairs Committee and mention human trafficking is a major issue. It will be commemorated on January 11, but I will be hosting, with the Homeland Security Committee, a hearing on human trafficking in Houston, Texas.

Quickly, I want to make mention of the Congressional Gold Medal that I have for Malala, who is a voice of strength, a young teenager gunned and shot--I wouldn't say gunned down because she lives in Pakistan, only because she wanted girls to have education.

I ask my colleagues to join myself and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to insure that we do have, if you will, the honor of presenting this to her, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, spoke before the United Nations, and I hope that we will do that.

Let me close, Mr. Speaker, by mentioning two quick things, and that is, let us not forget our veterans, enormously important, and let us also move quickly for NSA reforms.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee that helped write the Patriot Act, section 215, that was not our interpretation. That was not legislative history for trolling mega-data collection. We can be safe and secure, and we will be presenting a briefing on privacy and security next week in the Judiciary Committee, 2226, at 10:30. I hope all of the colleagues will come.

But I have introduced legislation to make sure that there is a people's advocate in the FISA Court, but more importantly, that we restrain and find a way to restrain the mega-collection. And I hope the President, in the reports that he has just received, will be able to do that as well.

Let me also indicate that internationally, I think this Congress should deal with where we are in Syria and where we were in South Sudan, two places that I am concerned about, the human cost, if you will.

We have a lot to do, Mr. Speaker. I just gave just small bits this evening, but we have a lot to do that we can do together in a bipartisan manner.

And we can look at the Affordable Care Act, just as a point, in closing, because it has been so divisive, and look at it that it is working. People want insurance. We can do that, and we can make sure that, as we do so, Mr. Speaker, then America will see us working together. That is what I would like to see happening.

I have given an array of an agenda that touches the lives of people. Let's get to work.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I had intended to talk about this subject, rebuilding the American manufacturing sector, and I will. But I just heard the most remarkable 1-hour debate in my life--not a debate, but a whole slew of accusations and incorrect facts. I guess a fact shouldn't be incorrect. But I've never heard such gobbledygook and misstatements in my entire life.

The last one--I'm absolutely delighted the gentleman's father is healthy, but to think that a 2 percent tax on medical devices is somehow going to stop medical technology when those devices are extraordinarily profitable to these companies is just lunacy. I know nobody likes to pay taxes, and certainly the manufacturers of those devices don't want to have to pay a 2 percent tax. But come on, you think that's going to stop medical technology from advancing when there's so much profit in it? I don't think so.

Okay. Thirty-seven times now, 37 times this week the Republican majority is going to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act--37 times-- when Americans are already benefiting from the Affordable Care Act. Is it that my friends who spoke here for the last hour want to tell every 22-year-old or 21-year-old in the entire Nation that they can no longer stay on their parents' health insurance? Because that's exactly what the repeal would do. Those young men and women who are counting on being able to have health insurance--no, repeal ends that part of the Affordable Health Care Act.

Are they to go out and tell 40 million Americans that they're not going to have health insurance at all? That's what the repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act will do, 40 million Americans. Are they to say that somehow this is costing more money to have an insurance policy where you can stay healthy, where you can get care before it becomes a crisis and wind up in an emergency room, that that's going to be cheaper when you repeal the Affordable Health Care Act? Sending people to the emergency room is going to be cheaper? What planet are you from? That's not the way it is. The most expensive care in the world is the emergency room, where somebody does not have the continuity of care that an insurance policy provides for them.

Or maybe they want to discriminate against women as existed before the Affordable Health Care Act. Every woman in this Nation faced insurance discrimination, but the Affordable Health Care Act ends that discrimination.

And how many families out there, how many families out across America have a member of that family--or maybe many members of that family-- that have some preexisting condition--high blood pressure, onset of diabetes, maybe some incident in their past? I will tell you, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years, and I know exactly what the health insurance companies will do if the provisions that prevent insurance discriminations are eliminated with the bill that these gentlemen and ladies intend to take up later this week.

Insurance discrimination has harmed millions upon millions of Americans--many of whom came to me as insurance commissioner in California pleading for some justice in their insurance program. Justice was to be found at least in California because I knew that the insurance companies had an obligation and they had a contract. But you eliminate the Affordable Health Care Act and you'll see insurance discrimination reemerge in the United States in a way that will harm millions upon millions of Americans because they will not be able to get insurance. And if they did, they will have to pay far more simply because they are a woman.

Thirty-seven times. Thirty-seven times you've attempted to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act.

Seniors--every senior in this Nation that's on Medicare is able to get a free annual checkup. And ladies and gentlemen, you need to understand in your arguments that that free, affordable annual checkup has reduced the cost of medical care in Medicare programs. And the inflation rate in Medicare has come down since the Affordable Care Act has gone into effect.

The statistics you toss around about the extraordinary cost, you need to understand that we have been plagued by health care insurance inflation for decades. The Affordable Health Care Act has built into it the very first opportunity this Nation has had nationwide

to bend the cost curve on health care, and we're seeing it happen today. We're seeing it happen today in the Medicare program because seniors are able to get prevention. They're able to get that drug that brings down their blood pressure, or the advice on how to deal with diabetes and avoid the extraordinary cost. Oh, yeah, 37 times repealing the Affordable Health Care Act.

You talk about jobs in America. Okay, let's talk about jobs in America. Let's talk about the fact that there's not been one significant piece of legislation out of this House since the beginning of this session to create jobs. President Obama stood here on this dais and talked about creating jobs, but this House has not brought forward one significant piece of legislation.

The President called for an infrastructure program--$50 billion--to put people back to work, to create the infrastructure--the streets, the roads, the bridges, the water systems, the sanitation systems--not just to put people back to work, but to build the foundation for future economic growth.

So where is that legislation? Has it even been heard in one committee controlled by our friends in the opposition party? No. No. Well, we will take up a transportation act soon, but will there be adequate funding for infrastructure? Probably not. Probably not.

The President called for an American Jobs Act, not even heard in committee here. Americans want to go to work. They want jobs. They want to go to work, and we have a program on the Democratic side to do that.

We want to deal with the big problems facing this Nation. We want to deal with the fact that we have millions of people that want to work in America, and we have serious problems to solve.

We ought to put aside this business of repealing the Affordable Health Care Act. Change it? Yes. Make a reasonable change and let's talk about it. Make a proposal about how to make it better, and we'll talk about it; but we're not going to talk about repealing it. We're not going to go there.

Maybe we ought to go with some things that are really important. Maybe we ought to go with something that was in the news today.

It's been determined that for the first time in at least 3 million years the carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is over 400 parts per million. What does that mean? Climate change? Oh, yes. If you were in Los Angeles this last couple of days, you would have seen record- high temperatures in early May. Reports are coming out about firestorms this summer season. We've seen Superstorm Sandy, and around this world we've seen many super-environmental effects.

The scientists tell us that that climate change will bring more severe weather events and there will be disruptions in our food supply like the current drought in the Southwest. Four hundred parts per million; in the last 3 million years, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has never been that high.

Now, the good news is that this Nation, the strongest economic nation in the world, despite the inability of this House to get things done, we can solve the climate change problem, or at least lead; and in doing so, we can put people back to work.

Here's how it can be done: clean energy. Clean energy is spurring business development across this country and its future is very, very bright. Not a month goes by without some entrepreneur, a scientist, an inventor, coming to me with another idea about how you can improve solar technologies, photovoltaic technologies. One just came up the other day, a very inspired way of doing it, perhaps two times more efficient, or one-and-a-half times more efficient than the current solar panels.

Companies are investing. U.S.-based venture capital investments in clean energy surged 30 percent from $5.1 billion in 2010 to $6.6 billion in 2011, and the trend continues. Jobs in the solar energy industry are in every State, and there are over 5,000 companies involved employing over 100,000 American workers. And wind energy, which is big in my district in Solano County, 75,000 people across this Nation, and many of them my own constituents.

There's great potential out there as we move from coal and oil, the energy of the previous two centuries, to the clean energies of the future. We'll see that in agriculture as we grow crops that can generate energy. We'll see it in geothermal. We'll see it in wave energy in our oceans. There's enormous potential. And the research that goes into this is also jobs.

Our colleagues on the majority side have attempted in the last year to reduce research for energy and agriculture. To what effect? Well, maybe they want to go to 500 parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I don't think Americans want to go there. I don't think the people of the world want to go there. I don't think they want the calamity that will come.

There's many other ways this can be done. Yesterday, as part of our Make It in America agenda, I was in Sacramento, California, on the edge of my district and a remarkable event took place, an event that was actually caused by a piece of legislation that was passed here, the very first piece of legislation signed by President Obama in 2009. It was the stimulus bill, the much-maligned stimulus bill. They said it didn't work. Well, it did work, Mr. Speaker, and it is working today, and it's being made in America. Here's what the American Recovery Act is doing for Americans. Here's what the stimulus bill, in yet one more example of success, is doing for America.

This is the most advanced locomotive built in the world. It's built in Sacramento. The stimulus bill provided $466 million for Amtrak to buy 70 advanced electric locomotives. And written into that bill was a sentence that said these locomotives must be American-made.

So, Siemens, a German company with large manufacturing facilities around the world, certainly in Germany and other countries on every continent except Antarctica, looked at that and said, 466 million? Hmmm. Made in America? We can do that.

They put a bid in. They went to their manufacturing plant in Sacramento that was previously manufacturing light rail cars, set about building a new factory, and that new factory employs 200 people today. Yesterday, the first of 70 new locomotives rolled onto America's rail tracks and will soon be providing service on the Northeastern Corridor. Two hundred new direct jobs in Sacramento at the Siemens factory and hundreds around the Nation--it works.

The climate change issue here is very important. The advanced technology in this locomotive that has 9,000 horsepower has the ability to generate electricity when it slows down, when it brakes for curves or stations, putting back into the grid electricity that it consumed in its previous travel.

Make it in America. Use our Federal tax dollars to buy and to build American-made equipment and supplies and materials. That's precisely what Siemens is doing.

This is a success story. This is the kind of thing we should be talking about here on the floor of the House of Representatives. This is the kind of work we should be doing in our committees: putting Americans back to work, laying the infrastructure for the future growth of this country. But, oh, no, we are going to spend this week dealing with the 37th attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

There's so much more to do. There's so much more to do here in America. Why don't we put our shoulder to the wheel of progress and provide a transportation bill that actually builds the infrastructure for this Nation, that provides these kinds of locomotives and train sets.

In the early days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed the Transcontinental Rail Act. Little known, but in that Rail Act was a provision, not just to build a rail line across America, but that all of the steel, all of the iron that was to be used in that line had to be American made. Made it in America, creating jobs, connecting the east to the west, 1862. And here we are all these decades later with the same idea: a new locomotive on American rails and American made.

I want to congratulate Siemens. I want to congratulate this German company that is here in America, is providing American jobs, and is providing the most advanced locomotive in the world, and they're building it in Sacramento, California.

So, what else can we do? What else can we do to provide jobs? There's so much. If we had listened to the President when he proposed to Congress the American JOBS Act, perhaps 2 million more Americans would be working today. Construction crews would be putting bridges and dams and levees and flood protection facilities, they would be building the infrastructure. And we would also be working on our energy systems.

The piece of legislation that I have introduced would require that tax subsidies for individuals and businesses that wanted to put up a wind turbine or a solar panel would only be available to them if they bought American-made equipment. Spend our tax money on American-made equipment made by Americans: a pretty simple thought. Abraham Lincoln must have had that thought, and the Congress in 1862 had that thought and passed a law that did it.

There is more that we can do.

When we passed the transportation bill, as we should this year or early next year, a new highway bill, we should put into it a proposal by Ranking Member Rahall. That proposal said that the money in this bill will be spent on American-made concrete, steel, trucks, buses-- putting Americans to work. The Democrats on that committee think that's a really good idea, and we hope our Republican colleagues agree and that we write into the transportation bill a very strong ``buy America'' provision so that Americans can have the jobs and so that we avoid the egregious and humiliating fact that the steel in much of the new Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge was not made by American steelworkers, not by American companies, but Chinese. It went out to bid. It was supposed to be 10 percent cheaper, so the Chinese company took the bid, built a new highly advanced steel mill, and sent faulty steel to San Francisco Bay, requiring even more expenditure.

So there are things we should learn from the history, and we will if we listen carefully, if we pay attention to what science is telling us about climate change, about the buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and if we listen, then we must have the courage to act. I would pray for our children's future and their children's and their children's beyond that that this House of Representatives and the Senate have the courage to act decisively on the climate crisis, and that in the farm bill that we mark up tomorrow we take the opportunity to write into that farm bill serious conservation programs that conserve the Nation's forests and farmland and water and streams. I would hope that we would do that.

I would hope that this House would find the courage to take on the oil industry and the coal industry and move decisively to green energy systems and stop, slow down what is a terrible process underway of filling our atmosphere with ever-increasing levels of carbon dioxide. After all, it's about the next generations. My generation will soon be gone, and so will most of the Members of this House. It's the future generations that are going to face our apparent unwillingness and inability to attack the climate change problem. As I said a moment ago, we can do it in a way that builds efficient transportation systems, like this locomotive that Siemens built in Sacramento, California, that builds green energy systems, renewable energy, low carbon dioxide- producing energy.

I've noticed that my colleague from Texas has joined us.

Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much for joining us this evening. We've gone on here about the Affordable Care Act and how we ought to turn our attention to jobs for America, and I'm sure you have some thoughts on those subjects and others. Please join us.

Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you so very much. You are a leader in all of these issues. You've often and almost always present these issues to the American people on the floor of the House, and you do it with passion and knowledge.

There was an hour spent earlier by our colleagues about the 37th time that they're going to attempt to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. It reminded me that they also have a piece of legislation to end Medicare as we know it. If you go back to when Medicare was put in place in the sixties, 1964, 1965, the Republican Party opposed it then and have often, through those years, to this date, attempted in various ways to eviscerate or to end it as we know it. Apparently they're going to try to do the same thing with the Affordable Health Care Act. It is such a waste of time because these programs are so fundamental to our ability to survive. This is health care for Americans and spreading that opportunity out.

It's a long discussion. We've had that discussion on the floor for many days. What we really ought to be focusing on is putting Americans back to work. This piece of legislation is one of about 30 pieces of legislation that's put in by the Democratic Caucus. This is mine. It deals with your tax money. It simply says that it's going to be spent on American-made clean energy, solar panels, wind turbines and the like. It's not a bad idea to spend your tax money on American-made equipment, American jobs, American businesses.

There's another bill that I have dealing with the transportation system. It's the same thing. That bill is now finding its way into the rewrite of the highway transportation program, the transportation bill; and hopefully it will be there. It's a very strong buy-American provision for our buses, our trains, our light rail, locomotives and steel and concrete for bridges.

We've got a lot of work to do in America. We've got a lot of work and a lot of need; and this House ought to be spending its time on that.

We'll take another night and we'll go into the tax policy side of this, which there is a lot to be said about changing our taxes to encourage manufacturing. Some of that has been done. I'll leave the one example that 2 years ago when the Democrats controlled this House, we eliminated about $12 billion of tax breaks that American companies received for shipping American jobs overseas. We put a stop to that. There's about another $5 billion that needs to be done, but we no longer control this House. But we ought to bring those jobs back home. We ought to flip that over and give a tax break for reshoring, bringing the jobs back to America.

That's another night's discussion. We'll take that up in another evening. But for tonight, it's about putting Americans back to work. It's about focusing the attention of this Chamber, the 435 of us, on what we really need in this country, which is a very strong and growing economy.

We've seen progress every quarter since the beginning of 2010. Every quarter we've seen private sector employment grow. We're not where we ought to be. We have more work to do. And when we finally rebuild the American manufacturing sector, when once again we make it in America, Americans are going to make it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I want to thank my good friend from California for really framing the discussion tonight around, I think, the only theme that gives us the kind of positive agenda that puts Americans back to work. We know, as the economy collapsed, 12 million were out of work. We also know that we have steadily made an increase, but it's not where any of us would like to be.

I listened to the gentleman so eloquently and so effectively ask the simple question as to why are we again putting on the floor of the House a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, something that has not only been resoundingly embraced by many of our leaders and by the uninsured in our Nation who are looking forward to the opportunity to be insured, but in the last election, I think it was very clear that, in the affirmation of President Obama, 64 million-plus people voted for him, and an enormous, unequaled divide in the States supported him, and he made it clear that he wanted to ensure, on behalf of the American people, that there would be the coverage of working families.

Now, as he looks to implementation, we recognize that Members of Congress will be engaged in making it work right, but we also realize that the Affordable Care Act will provide more resources for health professionals, that it will establish more federally qualified health clinics, which will create more jobs, and that it will attack the dastardly number, my friend, Mr. Garamendi, of 28.4 percent uninsured, and of 6 percent uninsured in the State of Texas. Of course, our Governor sees fit to reject the expanded Medicaid.

I can't imagine why we have not embraced this agenda, which includes the idea of all of the above and of creating clean energy and manufacturing jobs, bringing solar energy back to the United States again, making solar panels. Certainly, I'm aware of the fact that any country will grab what it can grab, but the United States has the capacity to do solar energy. It has the capacity to build wind turbines. All we have to do is invest.

It has the opportunity, in actuality, to build submarines and to get back in the shipbuilding business. I'm sure there are Members listening and saying, We've long left that business. No, I don't think so, because there is always a more technologically efficient, more effective, more swift, if you will, ship or submarine. You can always make it bigger and better, smaller and better. With the technological revolution, we also have the opportunity to raise the specter of manufacturing.

Of course, in the energy sector, where I come from, there is a whole array of opportunities as we utilize clean natural gas. That is making the manufacturing opportunities grow grander and grander, and I truly believe that we will find a common balance between natural gas producers and the manufacturers who need to use clean energy. Let me also say that the housing market is booming, and I am delighted to stand here and say that that is creating jobs, and many of these homes are being built on the basis of clean energy. H.R. 1524 is a bill that speaks to this issue.

I don't know why we are spending our time, 3 days, on the floor. I know that they will be in the Rules Committee tomorrow, and I will have a number of amendments that I hope to be introducing that hopefully speak to the issue of the utilization of expanded Medicaid for States that have 20 percent-plus of uninsured, the idea of ensuring that we include the right kind of Medicare reimbursement. These are issues that can go in regular order, but yet we are spending the Nation's time, dollars, and resources to be on the floor when we could be putting forward tax reform.

Many of us want to work on tax incentives for small businesses, the backbone of the economic engine of this country. My friends--I call them all my friends; I want small businesses to be paying attention-- you are our friends. You create jobs. You stay the course.

Just today, I was listening to an individual in the ravaged area of Hurricane Sandy, and she was saying she has six restaurants. She was complaining that we had not done what we were supposed to do. Obviously you remember they stalled the compensation for those souls in that eye of the storm. We waited and our friends, the Republicans, wouldn't let the money out. She is a victim of that. She said I have six restaurants and some of the ones I cook in. But just give her, in addition to the compensation from FEMA which is overdue, give her a tax structure that can help her grow her business and pass legislation that gives incentives for hiring the unemployed. That's what

should be on the floor of the House as we approach all of the excitement of graduation, when young people will be coming out of college doors, looking for the opportunity that America has always promised when they say we all are created equal.

I'll be going to a number of graduations. I know I will. You'll be speaking at graduations. What will you be saying to them? That America is a land of opportunity, yet we pound day after day after day after day, month after month, year after year on a bill that has been passed, signed into law and is being implemented, where physicians and researchers are saying thank you for the Affordable Care Act. For the items we have to fix, let's fix them together.

So I came to the floor to just say that I want to join the chorus of getting to work; I want to join the chorus of creating jobs. In fact, I want to join the chorus of putting our heads together and creating a summer youths' job program for the young people, high school students that are coming out in the middle of their high school years. We always used to be able to find work. No one cannot tell me that when we did it in 2009, the first year of President Obama's administration, it was a grand and exciting--it was not an experiment, but a grand and exciting response to all those young people who were in the high schools preparing to go to college.

Let me finish by saying this and just throw a little something on the table just to say that if we want to work, let's move toward immigration reform. That is another job creator and one that answers the questions of America's businesses. Let's do that. If we want to work--of course, I know I'll see a couple of my friend running out the door, but we can find sensible gun legislation. But I'll just say that if nothing else, can we get something that says store your guns?

Over the last weeks, we've been seeing people leave guns around and do this. So could you do that? Could you just have a simple--H.R. 65 says to hold people responsible for storing their guns.

I want to thank my friend for your leadership. It has been a persistent and pronounced leadership that I've been delighted to join you on. And I want to thank our leader, Nancy Pelosi, for her pointedness about can we get to work and her rising leadership, if you will, in the backdrop of the tenor that she had as Speaker to be able to get things done. And, of course, all the leadership, including the leading spokesperson for Make It in America, our friend, Steny Hoyer, and I must mention all of our leaders, Mr. Clyburn, Chairman Becerra, and our vice chair in Mr. Crowley, along with our committee ranking members.

But our message has been that we can do all of the fussing; we can fix the IRS; we can talk about issues that are occurring with leaks. That's our job. We understand that. But it is not our job to come back over and over again and revive a bill that is the law of the land not only by the vote of the United States Congress, but by the United States Supreme Court. What more do we need to answer that question?

So I hope to accomplish this in partnership with the gentleman. We're writing legislation, as well. Let me throw one other point in there. We joined in on some legislation about doing human exploration again. That creates jobs, as well. It builds the Orion that's on the books right now that is getting ready to be built. There are so many things we can do together bipartisan. And I want to thank the gentleman for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today and join the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to address the pervasive culture of violence that exists in America today.

The community in Newtown, Connecticut--along with the rest of the country--is still reeling from the inconceivable tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary on December 14, 2012; our hearts still ache with sadness and disbelief for the families and loved ones of the children and women who lost their lives in this senseless act of violence.

As the Founder and Co-Chair of the Congressional Children's Caucus and a senior Member of the Judiciary Committee, I have listened to the tragic testimony of individuals who have survived or lost loved ones as a result of gun violence.

In the words of President Obama after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, ``We're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.''

While it is certainly true that violent crime and homicide rates in this country have been declining in recent years, they are still far above those in other industrialized nations.

Moreover, in America, there exists a pernicious culture of violence; a subculture that with today's technologically advanced weaponry is far more dangerous to public safety than ever before. At no point in our nation's history has a single human been more capable of inflicting massive death and misery, and our society is producing more individuals who wish to employ such means to carry out their ill intentions.

Far too often, the tool of choice for would-be killers is a firearm. Moreover, military-style assault weapons with high-capacity magazines are not just in the hands of our men and women in the armed services; they on our streets. Many of them are in the wrong hands, and end up being the highly efficient tools of criminals and mass murderers.

Today marks a month since the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. In that time, at least 836 more people in America have died from gun violence and accidental shootings.

This isn't a fluke; every day, on average, 33 Americans are murdered with guns, amounting to more than 12,000 people a year. In addressing this issue, I recognize and respect other cultures that exist in America; law-abiding citizens who are responsible in their ownership of firearms. Many of these citizens are reasonable with respect to the lethal capacity of their firearms, opting not to obtain assault weapons or to equip assault weapons with 30, 50, 75, or 100-round magazines.

Our reaction to, God forbid, the next time a madman enters a crowded movie theatre with the intent to kill, cannot simply be to wish that there was an armed good Samaritan in the audience who had the courage, opportunity and ability to stop a psychopathic shooter wielding a semi- automatic weapon equipped with a high-capacity magazine.

I commend the President for convening a Gun Violence Task Force, and Vice President Biden for his outstanding leadership.

As the President develops policy recommendations, as Members of Congress, we need to act as well.

H.R. 65: ``The Child Gun Safety and Gun Access Prevention Act of 2013''

We have all been shaken by tragic events in which children are the victims of gun violence or accidents. Whether these events occurred in Newtown, CT, Aurora, CO, or on the streets of Chicago, IL, we need to effectively address the safety of our children immediately. Urban, suburban, or rural, guns have impacted children across the demographic spectrum.

While the nation's attention has often been drawn toward some of the more high-profile events, the broader statistics are disturbing, demonstrating a real need to address how we protect our nation's children from gun violence.

Every 30 minutes, a child or teenager in America dies or is injured by a gun. Every 3 hours and 15 minutes, a child or teenager loses their life to a firearm. In 2010, 82 children under 5 years of age lost their lives due to guns. To put that in perspective, 58 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty that year.

As the 113th Congress debates various proposals for gun legislation in light of recent tragedies, we can act now to pass H.R. 65, a bill with common sense standards that is focused on protecting our nation's children from gun violence and accidents.

H.R. 65 will raise the handgun eligibility age from 18 to 21, and will prohibit persons under the age of 21 from possessing semiautomatic assault weapons or large capacity magazines.

Moreover, H.R. 65 increases penalties on individuals who knowingly transfer a handgun, ammunition, semiautomatic assault weapon, or large capacity ammunition feeding device to a person under age 21.

In addition, H.R. 65 will also prohibit importers, manufacturers, and dealers from transferring firearms without providing the purchaser with a gun storage or safety device.

Finally, H.R. 65 authorizes the U.S. Attorney General to provide grants to enable local law enforcement agencies to develop and sponsor gun safety classes for parents and children.

These provisions, and others, can go a long way toward making our homes, schools, and streets safer for children across this country. We may not be able to prevent every gun-related tragedy from occurring in the future, but we have a responsibility to implement reasonable standards that will prevent the loss of innocent lives.

As we call for legislation to address gun related violence, it is also important to address another growing epidemic . . . the epidemic of bullying. We live in a society where children are exposed to so many different influences. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of children who have to face bullies in the classroom and in cyberspace. As we discuss the culture of violence, we must always remember the impact that this culture has on our nation's children.