***VIDEO FILE INCLUDED*** Rep. Lee Delivers Impassioned Address Opposing Amendment to Block School Shooting Data Collection
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Washington, D.C. – Member of the Committee on Education and Labor U.S. Rep. Susie Lee (Nev.-03) urged her colleagues to oppose a proposed amendment to H.R. 4301, the School Shooting Safety and Preparedness Act, that would remove the terms "school shooting" and "mass shooting" from the underlying bill. The amendment would make it more difficult for the bill to fulfill its sole purpose: to collect data on school shootings in the United States.
In her remarks, Rep. Lee highlighted the absurdity behind the amendment's effort to weaken the bill's underlying purpose:
"We are raising a generation of students who have to deal with the trauma of fear, every single day they walk into their school. We are the leaders in this country. We have the ability to make change. But instead, we are taking these piecemeal interventions because we want to avoid what really needs to be done.
"In fact, we have already passed comprehensive background checks that we know save lives.
"But instead of doing that, we want to tell teachers to get a gun, we want kids and families and five-year-olds to go through the trauma of thinking about what they would do if someone shot at them.
"But, what this bill does, the underlying bill, is it allows us to collect data, so that we have the ability to use that data to implement commonsense policy that saves lives and protects kids. What is the problem with that?"
BACKGROUND: In 2018, there were 110 school shootings, and since 1999, 228,000 children have been exposed to school shootings. In February 2019, Rep. Lee helped pass H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, and H.R. 1112, the Enhanced Background Checks Act, through the House of Representatives. After recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas; Gilroy, Calif.; and Dayton, Ohio, Rep. Lee joined House Democrats in sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), urging him to bring both vital background check bills to the Senate floor for a vote. Today marks 203 days since the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112.
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