02.27.18

Durbin Meets With Stoneman Douglas Students, Calls on Congress To Toughen Gun Laws

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today spoke on the Senate floor to discuss the urgent need for Congress to pass legislation to curb gun violence. Durbin earlier met with survivors of the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

“These students and young people across the country are changing the debate about gun violence,” said Durbin. “They are making clear how absurd it is for lawmakers to do nothing when Americans are getting shot every day in their homes… in their neighborhoods…at church…at a nightclub…at a concert…at school. They are fed up with politicians in Washington who ignore the overwhelming majority of Americans who want common sense gun reforms and who listen instead to a paranoid, bullying gun sales lobby. While there is no single reform that could stop every shooting, we know there are big gaps in our gun laws that make it easy for criminals, abusers, troubled children, and mentally unstable people to get guns- even military-style assault with bump stocks. We need to start closing these gaps. And that requires the Republicans who control Congress to finally stand up to the NRA and do something the NRA might not like.”

Video of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor are available here.

Audio of Durbin’s remarks on the Senate floor is available here.

Earlier today, Durbin met with a group of students who survived the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who are in Washington to urge Congress to pass laws to prevent future gun massacres. Photos of that meeting are available here.

Congress has yet to close the gun show loophole that the 1999 Columbine High School killers used to get their weapons.  And Congress did nothing in response to the murder of 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012.  The only vote the Senate has taken on gun laws in this current Congress was to weaken, not strengthen, the gun laws on the books.  That was a vote Senate Republicans brought up in 2017 to prevent the Social Security Administration from alerting the FBI’s gun background check system about people with mental illness.

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