Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Senate Rejecting Republicans’ Pistol Braces CRA Resolution

Washington, D.C.– Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor on the Republican CRA to overrule the ATF’s pistol brace rule. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks.

America’s tragic epidemic of gun violence has been made worse by easy access to pistol braces – but today, amazingly enough, with all of these mass shootings, Republicans want to loosen safety rules regarding these accessories and take us backwards in the fight against gun violence. It is hard to believe that is what’s happening.

Pistol braces make it easier to conceal and transport weapons that function as highly dangerous short barreled rifles – and in many instances have been accessories of choice in recent mass shootings. Some of these mass shooters choose these braces to cause mayhem and we are loosening the rules on them, it’s hard to believe our Republican friends are doing this.

How on Earth can Republicans look at our nation’s gun violence and think the right answer is to make these accessories easier to own?

How can Republicans look away from tragedies in Dayton, in Boulder, and in Nashville, and in so many other places where pistol braces were involved, and conclude we should reverse commonsense gun safety rules? When you use a pistol brace, if you’re up to bad purpose, it makes it easier to conceal a weapon with AR-15-like power.

Today’s Republican push to reverse safeguards against deadly pistol braces is an insult to families torn apart by these accessories. I think it’s in my mind almost every day, when the shootings occurred in Tennessee and the shooter used a pistol brace and three nine-year-olds were killed, as well as three teachers, and you saw the picture of the little girl crying on the bus leaving the school because she was so frightened. I think of that picture every day. This proposal would mark a horrible, horrible step backwards in America’s fight against gun violence.

I urge my colleagues, I hope on both sides of the aisle, to vote no.

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