Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Ongoing Gun Violence Prevention Legislation Talks

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding today’s House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing and the urgent need to address our nation’s gun violence epidemic. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Today the House Oversight and Reform Committee heard from a witness that by all means should never, ever, have had to come before the Congress: Miah Cerrillo, an 11 year old girl who survived the shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

Our House colleagues will also hear from Felix and Kimberly Rubio, the parents of 10-year-old Lexi who was killed in the shooting. You can just imagine their broken hearts. They will also hear from the only pediatrician in Uvalde available to treat the victims on that awful, awful, awful day.

I hope every single member of the House and Senate pays attention to these proceedings; God knows many in Congress need to listen to what these witnesses have to say.

We need to listen and Congress needs to act, because across every neighborhood, every school, every city, every town—urban, suburban, rural—Americans are wondering the same thing: when is Congress going to act to stop gun violence?

That is precisely what we are working on right now in the Senate.

It will be hard to believe after hearing what these witnesses have to say, that the Senate cannot find a way to come together and act on gun violence.

Over the past week and a half, my Democratic colleagues—led by the efforts of Senators Murphy and Sinema and Blumenthal and Manchin and Coons and Heinrich and others—have been holding good faith talks with Republicans to see if we can arrive at an agreement on gun violence legislation.  

As I’ve said, these bipartisan talks deserve the space they need to produce meaningful results, and so I hope my colleagues continue to make progress towards an effective agreement, hopefully by the end of the week.

The overwhelming consensus of our caucus, among the gun safety and violence prevention advocates, and among the American people is that even if can’t get everything done, that getting something real done is worth pursuing.

Let me repeat that. It's an overwhelming consensus in this caucus, among the broad panoply of gun groups, gun safety groups, and among the American people to get something done, to get something real done, even if it's not everything that many of us would wish for.

Given the other side’s long-held refusal to do anything meaningful on gun violence, we know how difficult this is, but that is all the more reason for us to explore every realistic opportunity to getting something real done.

We know we won’t get everything we want. The debate for gun safety will continue after this moment, but we have a moral obligation right now to try and get something meaningful—something meaningful—done for the American people in the name of those who have died.

This is not a partisan issue: gun safety is overwhelmingly backed by a large majority of Americans, majority of Democrats, Republicans, independents.

It is bipartisan because all Americans know the same thing: we stand alone in the developed world in the number of mass shootings that take place every year.

We stand alone among the developed nations of the world in that on any given day, another school, another grocery store, another hospital, another concert, another neighborhood can suddenly become a site of unimaginable tragedy.

Americans many for the first time are thinking oh, I might be shot, whether they're in a supermarket, or their kids are in a school or anywhere else.

And we stand alone in year after year, the plague of mass shootings in this country has been met by inaction. When other countries have faced these mass shootings they have acted and they have acted well. Why aren't we?

The American people are tired and angry of the same thing happening again and again. They are tired of nothing getting done. They are tired of the greatest country in the world being paralyzed and not acting in a right way, mainly because people on the other side of the aisle haven't joined us.

But I urge my colleagues now: let’s get something done. The sooner we act, the greater chance we have of preventing another senseless mass shooting in America. Let’s break the cycle of gun violence.

And let’s end the days when parents, doctors, and children have to testify before the Congress in order to beg their elected representatives to take action. 

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