U.S. Rep. Kelly Morrison Reads Letters from Minnesotans Calling for Gun Control on House Floor

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, U.S. Representative Kelly Morrison (MN-03) spoke on the House floor to recognize National Gun Violence Awareness Month and call out the Trump Administration for its refusal to act on gun violence.

This June marks nine months since the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minnesota, which killed two children and injured dozens more. But as America faces hundreds of school shootings a year, the Trump Administration has enacted a historic rollback of gun regulations: reducing background checks, repealing bump stock regulations, and even proposing a new rule that would let people mail handguns, undermining protections against gun trafficking across the country.

In her speech on the House Floor, Rep. Morrison read letters written from the hundreds of Minnesotans who attended her gun violence prevention town hall last fall in the wake of the Annunciation School shooting. The letters from Minnesotans demanded action on gun violence and called for common sense reforms.

Watch Representative Morrison's floor speech HERE.

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Read a transcript of Representative Morrison's remarks below:

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in recognition of June as National Gun Violence Awareness Month.

As one Minnesotan wrote: "I'm standing up for children because we're the adults, it's our responsibility to make them feel safe."

I have a stack of notes here from hundreds of Minnesotans who came together after the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School demanding action…

Calling for common sense reforms,

Expressing their grief and their anger and their frustration,

Begging for their elected leaders to do something.

Anything to respond to the tragedy that left an 8 year old and a 10 year old dead… hundreds more forever traumatized… and a community reeling.

What are we doing if we are not listening to the American people?

Not protecting our children?

We need to listen to the American people.

We need to act to keep our children safe.

We need to ban assault weapons, bump stocks, and high capacity magazine sales…

Get weapons of war off our streets…

Invest in addressing our nation's mental health crisis…

The list goes on.

There won't be one policy alone that will end this public health crisis, but what we can't do is nothing.

There are so many steps we could take immediately.

Gun violence is an epidemic that has stained our country - and we are going in the wrong direction.

As our country faces hundreds of mass shootings every year - more mass shootings than any country on the face of the planet - the Trump Administration is taking an ax to our nation's gun safety laws and doing the dirty work of the big gun lobby.

Rolling back dozens of federal safety regulations…

Making it easier for criminals to buy and ship guns…

Cutting funding and abandoning critical gun violence prevention programs that keep our communities safe…

They are doubling down on the number one killer of children in the United States of America.

Gun violence is preventable.

Our children deserve to be our priority.

They deserve to feel safe.

And they deserve adults who will act.

Every day we are here in Congress, we are creating the world our children will inherit.

We should be creating a world where children feel safe at school.

Where they can be healthy and thrive.

Not where they live in fear and see adults refusing to protect them.

Mr. Speaker, I want to share some examples of what Minnesotans wrote:

"My students should not have to worry about being killed at school."

"I shouldn't have to worry about if my kids are safe at their school and daycare."

"My grandchildren go to school every day and I worry they will be victims. I also am devastated they will live their school lives in fear."

This is tragic.

This is heartbreaking.

And this is preventable.

It doesn't need to be this way.

We don't have to live like this.

We could choose to take steps to make our children and our communities safer.

We could create a world with far less gun violence, where people don't live in fear of it.

If only Congress had the courage to act.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield back.

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