Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Gun Violence Legislation
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding ongoing bipartisan talks on legislation to address our nation’s gun violence epidemic. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
As the Senate’s June work period begins the American people have one question front of mind: after years and decades of gridlock, will the Senate do something about our nation’s gun violence epidemic?
Democrats are ready to take action, and soon every single member of this chamber is going to have to answer that question.
Today is June 7th, 2022. It is the 158th day of the year.
Already – already – this year we’ve had over two hundred fifty mass shootings—over two hundred fifty. That’s more than one a day.
Two weeks ago, we saw the worst school shooting in America since the tragedy at Sandy Hook. An 18-year-old boy bought two assault rifles for his birthday and gunned down 19 children in Uvalde Texas. Nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds, eleven-year-olds. You see the pictures of the kids with their sweatshirts, with their awards, with their trophies. Every parent has seen pictures of children that age and to know they are no longer, that they were wiped out, that they were brutally murdered breaks your heart, just sends shivers down your spine.
And a few hours after it happened – parents realized and were told they would never see their children again.
Ten days before that, eleven more people were gunned down while grocery shopping in Buffalo, simply because of the color of their skin. I still can’t get out of my mind the three year old I met when I visited Buffalo, who lost his dad because his dad made a quick stop to the Tops Supermarket to get his son a birthday cake. It was his son’s birthday. He’ll never see his dad again. Living with that his whole life, that his dad was killed going to get him a birthday cake.
And for every tragedy that traumatizes the nation’s collective psyche, there are countless others that take place outside the national spotlight. They happen every single day in homes and communities in every part of this country.
Across every neighborhood, every school, every small town, every large city, Americans of all persuasions are wondering the same thing: when is it going to be enough? When will Congress find the will to act?
One party has that will, and soon we will determine whether the other side of the aisle will join.
That is the challenge that faces this chamber as we begin this work period.
Before Memorial Day, I made clear that the Senate will vote on gun safety legislation in the near future.
To that end, a handful of my Democratic colleagues—led by Senator Murphy and including the great work of Senators, Blumenthal, Sinema, Manchin, Coons, Heinrich and others—have been holding extended and substantive talks with Republicans to see what can pass this chamber that will meaningfully address our nation’s gun violence epidemic.
I’m encouraging my Democratic colleagues to keep talking to see if Republicans will work with us to come up with something that will make a meaningful change in the lives of the American people and help stop gun violence.
There is virtual unanimity amongst Senate Democrats that getting something passed through this chamber is worth pursuing if it will make a tangible difference in preventing gun violence.
We know that we’re not going to get everything we want, we know that the push for even more meaningful gun safety will continue after this debate, but making real progress is very important.
Senator Murphy has asked for some space to have the bipartisan talks continue and I have given him that space. I look forward to discussing the status of those talks with my colleagues today.
We owe it to American parents. We owe it to American kids.
We owe it to every single neighborhood, every single community, every single household that has been ripped apart by gun violence.
This is a tough fight. Nevertheless, we have a moral obligation to do everything conceivable to break the cycle of violence.
In the wake of the tragedies in Uvalde and Buffalo, we have a chance to tell the American people that this time, their anguish will not fall on deaf ears.
We have a chance to tell them we hear them, that we too are angry, and we are going to do everything we can to make some real progress in the Senate, difficult as that is.
But it’s only going to happen if both sides keep working. Only with that will hope for a compromise translate into real, concrete legislation.
We know it’s a difficult hurdle to overcome but nevertheless we must do everything we can to try and succeed.
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