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Good afternoon. Joining me here today are people from across the nation who have either
survived gun violence, including recent mass shootings, or have lost family members to
gun violence. And if you think there's a lot of people here, that is because there's
an awful lot of gun violence in our country.
Since last Friday's tragedy in Connecticut, dozens of grieving parents and grandparents,
and an entire deeply wounded community, now know the kind of anguish that these people
with me have endured.
What happened in Newtown was an unspeakable crime -- a mass *** in which six- and seven-year-old
children were gunned down in their classrooms, along with their elementary school teachers
and administrators.
To all those who lost loved ones: our hearts are broken and our prayers certainly are with
you.
Last night, the President said he would use whatever powers his office holds to address
this violence, and I think it is critical that he do so. Words alone cannot heal our
nation. Only action can do that.
Gun violence is a national epidemic -- and a national tragedy -- that demands more than
words. We are the only industrialized country that has this problem. In the whole world,
the only one.
That's why we need immediate national action, from the President and from Congress. It should
be at the top of their agenda because what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School was,
sadly, no aberration.
Gun violence takes the lives of 34 Americans every single day. That means that during President
Obama's next four-year term, some 48,000 Americans will be killed with guns. That's
roughly the number of Americans that died in the Vietnam War. And since 1968, when RFK
and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated, roughly 400,000 Americans have been killed
with guns, which is more Americans than died in World War II. They will leave behind mothers
and fathers, sisters and brothers, friends and neighbors, like those with us today, whose
lives are devastated by loss.
The President spoke out visibly on gun violence after the mass shooting in Tucson two years
ago. Yet since those shootings happened, more than 24,100 Americans have been murdered with
guns. That's right, in two years, 24,100 more Americans have been murdered with guns.
Had we done something then, a vast number of those would be alive today, and their families
wouldn't have been torn asunder.
If the massacre in Tucson wasn't enough to make our national leaders act, and if the
more recent bloodshed in Aurora, Colorado, in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in Portland, Oregon
and other cities and towns wasn't enough, perhaps this slaughter of innocents at Sandy
Hook Elementary School will, at long last, be enough.
Millions of Americans hope that's true. But it's not enough for us to hope. We have to
speak up.
We have to make our voices heard and hold Washington accountable for finally facing
up to the epidemic of gun violence in our country. If this moment passes into memory
without action from Washington, it will be a stain upon our nation's commitment to protecting
the innocent, including our children.
Today, Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- a bipartisan coalition of more than 700 mayors from cities
and towns across America -- is releasing a set of 34 very powerful, and very personal,
brief video statements. We'll see four of them in just a few minutes. These videos,
I think, bear testimony to the sorrow and trauma produced by gun violence in our nation.
Many of those with us today have made these video statements. In each video, those bearing
witness have the same message: I demand a plan, the time for talk is over. Congress
and the White House has to come up with something that stops this carnage, no matter what the
political ramifications are. Somehow or other, we've come to think that getting reelected
is more important than saving lives, that political power is more important than saving
lives, that partisan politics is more important than saving lives. Enough.
These video statements -- which are available online at DemandAPlan.org -- will be delivered
to all of the members of the 113th U.S. Congress when it convenes next month. Then -- as now
-- Mayors Against Illegal Guns will ask Congress and the White House to take common-sense steps
to reduce gun violence.
There are three major pieces of legislation that the President should push Congress to
pass. Let me point out that one of the few acts related to firearms that Congress has
passed in recent years was to immunize firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits brought
by those injured with guns. If they can do that -- what an outrage -- if they can do
that, and they can't do what we're proposing now.
Think about that, rather than trying to solve the problem, they deliberately passed a piece
of legislation to make it worse. I don't know where there's any other industry that
has received Congressional immunity from lawsuits brought by those injured with their products.
First, Congress should pass the Fix Gun Checks Act, which would close the ėprivate sale
loophole' that allows more than 40 percent of gun sales to go through without a background
check. It would require every gun buyer to pass a background check.
The majority of gun sales already go through the background check system, and it's neither
onerous nor intrusive, nor does it infringe on anyone's rights. This bill would also
require States and the Federal government to send all necessary records on felons, domestic
abusers, the seriously mentally ill, and other dangerous people to the National Instant Criminal
Background Check System.
In fact, the President, with a simple stroke of his pen, not needing approval from anybody
else, could ensure the Federal government's compliance with this provision.
Congress did what they always do, they pass a law and then they don't enforce it. They
don't vote the money to enforce it, and they don't let the President appoint somebody
to do the enforcement.
Second, it is time to pass an enforceable and effective assault weapons ban -- one that
isn't riddled with loopholes and easy evasion. A previous ban expired in 2004, and even though
President Bush supported reinstating it, Congress never acted. That must change.
Congress should also ban the high-capacity magazines that have been used again and again
in these mass shootings. These weapons and ammunition can be used to kill large numbers
of people quickly, and regulating them certainly falls within the bounds of the Second Amendment.
And third, the President and Congress should work together to make gun trafficking a felony
-- as Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, and others have proposed.
This legislative package would make it harder for criminals, drug abusers, minors, and the
mentally ill to get guns, and harder for them to inflict the level of carnage that we saw
this weekend. It's not a panacea, it wouldn't get rid of all the guns on the streets, but
it would go a long way towards limiting them and limiting the number of people killed.
And it would make it easier for our police and prosecutors to lock up those who supply
illegal guns to criminals and the mentally ill.
We urge the President to include all three of these steps in any legislative package
he sends to Congress. And we urge him to assemble a legislative package quickly -- so that gun
violence can be the first order of business that the new Congress takes up when it convenes
in January.
I think the millions of Americans who have been affected by gun violence -- including
the individuals standing with me today -- deserve nothing less.
The President and Congress can and should address these measures at the same that they
are reaching agreement on avoiding the fiscal cliff. These things have nothing to do with
each other, and if Congress and the President can't focus on two things at once, who on
earth did we elect?
At the same time, there are steps that the President can take on his own, right now,
to address gun violence in addition to ordering all Federal agencies to send data to the crime
database -- and there should be no delay. I've already mentioned the Federal compliance
Criminal Background Check System. There are three others.
First, the President should make the confirmation of a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms a higher priority than it's been so far. It has been six years since
the ATF has had a confirmed director.
Can you imagine the outrage if the Department of Homeland Security went six years without
a confirmed director? It would never happen, because it would be a public safety threat
and Americans would never tolerate it.
Well let me tell you, leaving the ATF without a director is also a public safety threat.
You would think that the President could demand, could cajole, should convince Congress --
we should shame Congress into approving somebody who can enforce the very laws that Congress
passed. That's why today I urged the President to make a recess appointment to fill the vacancy
at the top of the ATF.
Second, the President should direct the Justice Department to step up its prosecution of gun
criminals who try to buy guns.
In 2009, 71,000 people who had been convicted of gun crimes tried to buy guns by lying on
their background checks, yet the Federal government prosecuted only 77 of those cases. If your
math isn't any good, I'll do it for you -- that's one-tenth of one percent. These
are gun criminals trying to buy guns illegally -- and the Federal government is just letting
them walk.
And third, the President should immediately lift what's known as the Tiahrt gag order,
which keeps the public in the dark about gun traffickers: who they are and how they operate.
In Kansas, the voters rejected Tiahrt when he ran for Governor, and now it's time for
the President to reject his amendment.
New York has some of the toughest gun laws in the country -- and every day, the members
of the NYPD put their lives on the line to enforce those laws. Those are big reasons
why we're the safest big city in the nation. This year we're on course to record the fewest
homicides in modern memory.
But we're not satisfied with that. Even one *** is one *** too many -- in our city
or in any city. One *** is a tragedy that the victims' loved ones carry with them for
the rest of their lives, and it's no consolation if it's the only one.
In one of the ėI Demand a Plan' videos we're releasing today, a New Yorker, Chris Foye,
who is with us today, talks about the death of his 13-year-old son, who was killed by
a stray bullet near his home in Harlem. He describes what happened as ėthe worst pain
a parent can go through.'
Today, tragically, many more parents in Connecticut are now going through that pain, so let's
listen to what he and others have to tell us.
[Foye video is played.]
Lori Haas's daughter, Emily, was shot and wounded on that day in 2007 when a gunman
killed 32 students at Virginia Tech University. Lori is also here today; let's hear her story.
[Haas video is played.]
Twenty-six years ago, Stephen Moses was killed in an act of random gun violence. In this
video, his sister Mindy Moses, who is also here, tells us about her unending sorrow.
[Moses video is played.]
Nardyne Jeffries's daughter Brishell was killed in a drive-by shooting while eating
pizza with friends. In this video, Nardyne, who is also here, tells us her story.
[Jeffries video is played.]
Nardyne; Mindy; Lori; Chris: I want to thank each of you for giving us your testimony, for speaking out, and for joining us here today.