DEGETTE AND MCCARTHY CALL FOR CONGRESS TO BAN HIGH-CAPACITY MAGAZINES
Advocate for Reasonable Step to Stop Terrible Shootings from Becoming Mass Casualties

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (CO-1) today joined with Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4) and Senators Frank Lautenberg (NJ) and Robert Menendez (NJ) to call on Congress to pass a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips. In last week’s horrific theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, the gunman entered the theater with multiple weapons, including an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon, with a 100-round magazine. Reports indicate that the gunman was able to shoot 71 people in only a couple of minutes.

Beginning when she first arrived in Congress 16 years ago, Rep. DeGette has led the charge on introducing bills on multiple occasions that would ban these high-capacity clips, beginning with the bill’s first introduction in 1998. In this Congress, DeGette and McCarthy have once again introduced a similar bill, H.R.308, the Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act, to ban high-capacity magazines.    Sens. Lautenberg and Menendez have introduced similar legislation in the U.S. Senate. Today’s press conference focused on calling for action on this bill, particularly in light of the mass casualty in Aurora.

Rep. DeGette’s remarks are as follows:

“First of all, on behalf of the citizens of Colorado, I’d like to express our deepest thanks for the outpouring of support our community has received from across the nation, since the horrible events of early last Friday morning.

“In addition to Senator Lautenberg and Senator Menendez, I’m particularly pleased to be here today with Representative Carolyn McCarthy.  She and I came together to Congress in 1996, and we immediately began working together to introduce our first bill to ban the use of high capacity magazines. Yet here we are, 16 years later, and in the wake of another violent tragedy, it’s impossible to understand why an ordinary citizen can get a hold of a high-capacity magazine that can fire 100 rounds in 90 seconds.

“The senseless violence of last week’s theater shooting in Aurora has affected people from all over the Denver-area community, and, as days pass, we keep finding out just how close it came to so many of us. My 18 year old daughter has a friend that was in the theater just next door; and a friend of our family lost her nephew in the tragedy. Three of the deceased gunned down last week – including little six-year-old Veronica Moser – lived in my district and were part of the community I have the privilege of representing. And the heartbreaking stories go on and on. So today, I join with hundreds of thousands of families in simply saying, enough is enough.

“Our same community went through the horrific experience of Columbine back in 1999. Since then our nation has suffered through Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and of course the shooting of our friend and colleague Gabby Giffords last year, just to name a few. In every case, in the days following the violence, while everyone grieves and mourns the great losses, we hear the same tired, stale arguments from pundits on both sides of the aisle: ‘Gun control is off the table…’ ‘It’s a nonstarter’… ‘there’s no political will to do it.’ Well I think all of us standing here today refuse to accept that.

“Yes, the second amendment grants Americans the right to own a gun. But the second amendment does NOT grant people the right to walk into a theater with a high-capacity ammunition clip and kill or maim scores of their fellow Americans.

“So today I call on Congress and our nation to finally have that conversation. The conversation that finally recognizes that it’s not about banning all guns; it’s not about taking people’s guns away; it’s about taking reasonable steps that will stop people from having guns only designed to kill many, many, people in a short period of time.

“Some of those on the other side of the aisle have been proclaiming that you are never going to be able to completely stop someone from taking a weapon into a theater or a school or a mall, or any other public place, and start shooting innocent citizens. That may very well be true – but I’ll tell you something – we might not be able to stop that person from bringing in a weapon, but we sure as heck can stop that person from being able to shoot 71 people out of 200 in just a couple of minutes.

“Many others are also saying – just like they always do – that if someone in the theater had a gun, they could have shot the gunman. To the people who say that, I would say that, first of all, Colorado has a concealed carry statute – so it’s possible someone did have a gun in that theater.  But when you have a situation with a darkened, crowded, theater; a gunman who unleashes tear gas into the crowd; who is covered in virtually head-to-toe bulletproof protection; and shooting a semiautomatic weapon with a 100-round clip… the notion that someone is going to pull out a gun and be able to shoot this man is completely ridiculous.

“Since Rep. McCarthy and I have been in Congress, we’ve had 23 moments of silence on the Floor of the House for victims of gun violence. Let me say that again – 23 moments of silence. And we’ll have another one later today for the Aurora theater massacre. How many more moments of silence do we have to have? How many more prayer vigils do we have to go to? How many more memorial services and funerals must we attend?  The time has come to end the same old conversations and instead, come together to stop terrible shootings from becoming mass casualties.

“I understand the Second Amendment. I believe in the Second Amendment. But we have a duty – every single Member of Congress has a duty – to protect every American man, woman and child from the horrific massacres we experienced in Aurora last week.”

   
###