The speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, washington, d. C. , december 18, 2012. I hereby appoint the honorable nan s. Hayworth to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, john a. Boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore the house will receive a message. The messenger madam speaker, a message from the senate. The secretary madam speaker. I have been directed by the house sflat that the house that the senate has passed a bill in which the concurrence of the house is requested. The speaker pro tempore pursuant to the order of the house of january 17, 2012, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip limited to five minutes each, but in no event shall debate continue beyond 11 50 a. M. The chair recognizes the gentleman from texas, mr. Poe, for five minutes. Mr. Poe madam speaker, there is nothing more americana than the image of happy children at school during the Christmas Season. That week that Norman Rockwell picture was stolen. Here are 23 of the 26 victims that were murdered that day. We should know their photographs. We should know their names. They were chase kowalski, 7 years of age. James mattioli, 6. Jack pinto, 6. Carolyn previdi, 6. Avielle richman, 6. Benjamin, wheeler, 6 years of age. Allison wyatt, age 6. Catherine hubbard, 6. Daniel, 7 years old. Grace mcdonald, 7. Emilie parker, 6 years. Jesse lewis, age 6. Ana marquezgreene, 6. Noah posner, 6. Jessica rekos, 6. Josephine gray, age 7. Madeleine hsu, 6. Olivia engel, age 6. Dylan hockley. Those were the children. Here are the names of the teachers. Dawn hochsprung, avenlg 27. Anne marie murphy, age 52. Lauren rousseau, 30. Mary sherlach, 56. Rachel davino, age 49. Madam speaker, these were real people, real victims, real children and real pictures of newtown, connecticut. The people of connecticut can relate to these victims of the assault and all americans can relate to some extent this crime thats occurred. At this Elementary School. Madam speaker, i have four kids and 10 grandkids, three of my daughters are teachers by profession. My wife is a first Grade Elementary School teacher. And no parent, no parent ever wants to bury their child. They just dont want to do that. We never want our children to die in their youth. Like these children did. So, madam speaker, we mourn with the families of connecticut. We must honor the victims in our prayers and in our words and ask the good lord to bless them, their families, the people of connecticut and yes, our country. And thats just the way it is. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentlemans time has expired. The chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon, mr. Blumenauer, for five minutes. Mr. Blumenauer the mall shooting that might have been worse and ended in newtown, connecticut, where its impossible to imagine that it was worse. Its part of an ongoing pattern of carnage because we lose one life to gun violence every 20 minutes, every hour, every day. The mass murders reclaiming my time page gets the countrys attention, but the same total loss of life at sandy hook happens more than twice every day all year long. This is personal for me, not just because the mall shooter was in my district, but i had a High School Friend who was killed with a random freak driveby shooting, my brother took his life with a handgun as a young man. I supported gun provisions at the state and federal level at every opportunity. It might be different now. Not just because the horrific image of parade of funerals for children, i submit mayor bloombergs advocacy for gun safety and mayors who brare the brunt of the gun violence. I welcome the president s leadership and will support any reform that he advances. But i would urge my colleagues to read the columns in the sunday times by my fellow oregon ann, nick, and another in washington post. They demonstrate, we know what works. There are examples around the work. Even in america with lax weak gun protections there are in fact some regulations in some places and they make a difference. Lets treat gun violence like any Public Health crisis which i would say losing 30,000 lives a year would qualify as a crisis. We need to treat it like the threat to Public Health and families that it is, treat a gun like any other consumer product. This is how we slash the death rate. Enforcement and education. For guns it starts when congress stops being intimidated by the extremists and then just do what the majority of gun owners agree we should do. We new the assault weapon ban which maybe well introduce under the leadership of our dear friend and colleague, care lynn mccarthy. Close the gun show loophole. For starters, things that n. R. A. Members agree with. Lets care as much about real guns as we do about toy gun consumer protection. To start us down the road of making our children safer by treating childrens gun safety like their auto safety. All the air bags, antidrunk driving campaigns, child seats, driver education, careful licensing, it slashed the accident rate but it didnt eliminate them altogether. We cant imagine a World Without these protections for our families. Lets see if we can imagine a world where our children are safer from gun violence. And then make it happen. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. The chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. Murphy, for five minutes. Mr. Murphy madam speaker, i rise today with a heavy heart, to honor petty officer nicholas , a person who sacrificed his life in the most honorable of ways, to protect and save the life of another human being. His life was a testament to the core values of the United States navy, honor, courage and commitment. On december 9, twelve, pet 2012, the petty officer rescued ar kidnapped american doctor from the taliban near kabul. A veteran of the iraq war and a decorated navy seal, the petty officer died during critical injuries sustained on the Successful Mission to save the life of dr. Joseph. A grateful nation grieves for him and his family. He strived for excellence, madam speaker. As a Norwin High School student, peers described him as diligent and driven, always aware he would someday serve his country. He was a dedicated student and a wrestler. He consistently challenged himself to pursue excellence in everything he did. Such dedication to ones country was also carried on by him. That is truly remarkable but its also expected of a navy seal. Among many commodations, he was awarded the bronze star, the joint Service Commendation medal and the marine corps commendation for service during combat. And now the purple heart. The bible reminds us that there is no greater love than to lay down ones life for ones friend. Through his incredible sacrifice, he not only exhibited his great love of country but his unwavering affection for his brothers and sisters. A verse added, it is fitting to recall now. It goes on to say, and when at length the course is run, the work for home and country done of all the souls that sailed, let not one life in thee have failed. Hear from heaven a sailors cry and grant eternal life on i. Today we all bid him fare wind. May he rest in peace and may the lord keep him and his family in his loving hands. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. The chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. Quigley, for five minutes. Mr. Quigley thank you, madam speaker. Albert einstein once said the world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil but because of those who look on and do nothing. Madam speaker, we have looked on and done nothing. We in this body, we in this congress, we in this government have done nothing. Not protecting the lives of innocent children gunned down in connecticut last friday. Nothing to protect People Killed each day by guns across america. Nothing to stop the epidemic of senseless gun violence that plague not only our major cities like new york and chicago, but countless small towns throughout our nation, towns with names like newtown, aurora, tucson, dekalb, blacksburg and littleton. In the years i have been a member of this body, this house has not held a single hearing, not one to address gun violence. While over 30,000 americans die each year from gun violence, over 400 lives have been lost by gun violence in my hometown of chicago, people are dying every day. We in this body are afraid to talk about it. The time has come for us to stop listening to the gun lobby and start listening to the American People. The fact is the majority of americans gun owning and not, desire commonsense, reasonable gun regulation. Congress must no longer stand in the way of reasonable legislation, instead we must champion it. The American People want to see background checks required on all firearm purchases instead of the fractions of sales that get done today. 408 of u. S. Gun sales are by private sellers who are not required to perform background checks. You can be a threetime convicted felon, a serial domestic abuser, severely mentally ill, or even on a terrorist watch list and still go to a gun show or go on the internet and buy whatever gun you want. The American People want to strengthen their bases to prevent the mentally ill from buying gun. But over a million disqualifying Mental Health records are still missing from states. 10 states have failed to flag a Single Person as mentally ill. And 17 states list less than 100 people. Miles per hour people want to see assault weapons bans reinstated and large capacity ammunition clps banned to keep dangerous ammunition out of the hands of mad men. Lets face it. When you put a 30round clip in an assault weapon, you are not protecting your home. You are not hunting deer, you are hunting people. We have hid from this fight for too long. For too long we have used politics and the Second Amendment to cover up our lack of action. Yes, the Supreme Court affirmed we have a right to bear arms, but in that same ruling the court made clear that right is not unlimited. We do not, as Justice Scalia put it, have an unlimited right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever for whatever purpose. Our individual right to bear arms is limited by a right among others to keep our children safe. Any of those children could have been one of ours and for 20 parents, it was. We may not be able to stop every crime, we know that no single law or set of laws can prevent every act of senseless violence in our society, but we have the ability and the nohow to prevent many of them. We must simply find the courage. We can no longer be bystanders to injustice. We cannot continue to look on and do nothing. As shakespeare said, the fault lies not within our stars but in ourselves. We must act. Thank you. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. The chair recognizes the gentleman from washington, mr. Mcdermott, for five minutes. Mr. Mcdermott i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. The speaker pro tempore without objection, so ordered. Mr. Mcdermott madam speaker, the bible says that by their deeds ye shall know them. And this congress should pay heed to that message. This week we are mourning 20 children, buried in newtown, connecticut, the president is right when he says, we have seen this too many times before and since then. About this time 24 years ago i was sworn into the congress. Two weeks later five children were killed and 29 wounded in the stockton, california, schoolyard at the cleveland Elementary School. You would have thought that we would have acted. Bills were put in. It took us until 1993, four years, to pass the gun assault weapon ban. Courageous legislators stood up and said enough is enough. But hearings and all went on and on, about militarystyle weapons that should be banned. Anybody knows you dont hunt with a banana clip with 30 shells in it or 30 bullets in it. Thats not hunting. Thats not what you use at a gun range. And that you should not be able we know we shouldnt be able to buy a gun if you have a record or serious Mental Illness. You would think those things that were common sense would become law. They became law in 1993, and there was a pushback from the National Rifle association that said, well, all right. You can pass this. But put a 10year sunset on it. Why do you put a sunset on an assault weapon ban . But we did. The fight was led by a courageous lawmaker who was willing to stand up, take the chance of having the n. R. A. Come down on him, name is pete stark. Pete stark led the fight in the house. Dianne feinstein led the fight in the senate. He pushed and pushed and pushed and butt the bill in again and again and again and finally got it through. Now, a few days hell cast his last vote in the house. Im going to miss him. We need courageous legislators like that. What we didnt have 10 years later were courageous legislators. When the ban came to an end in 19 2004, the house was in different hands, politics had changed, 9 11 had happened, and everybody said, whats the problem . We dont need this ban anymore. It is very clear that there are some things we can do, that is things like the weapon ban, but the real difficult part for us is to have a discussion about violence in our society. One of my old friends in afghanistan told me you can tell a country by what the National Game s ours used to be baseball. Its hard to believe that baseball is National Game anymore when you look at sun night football and realize how we glorify violence. Go into a game store and look at the games that we buy for our kids at christmas. Games that make it possible for you to sit and kill people hour after hour after hour sitting alone by a computer. Violence on television, we have managed to get some of it down before 8 00 at night when kids are still up. But we struggle because we are always in a Free Enterprise society you can do anything you want. Well, we run the risk of having the difficulties we have here today. The other thing we have to think about is the whole question of how we deal with the mentally ill. Back in 1996 there was an act that passed in california, made it almost impossible to put anybody in a locked facility unless they were intimately going to kill somebody or kill themselves or gravely disabled was the term. We made it very hard to deal with these kinds of cases. And privacy rules and all this, we have added on over time has made it even more difficult. But it is clear that we as a society have to face the fact that there are some people who need help. This mother was looking for it. We must act in this house. The speaker pro tempore the chair recognizes gentleman from illinois, mr. Dold, for five minutes. Mr. Dold thank you, madam speaker. Madam speaker, the tragedy in newtown, connecticut, highlights an issue that i think so often in this chamber actually we talk about things that separate us. Things that we have political battles and fights over, unfortunately on friday a tragedy in connecticut taking the lives of far too many. 20 children is a tragedy that knows no political boundaries. These are children that had their entire lives in front of them. On friday, like many of us here, we were back at home in our districts and after hearing the news many of us went to our schools to pick up our children. To hug them just a little bit longer. This is a tranldy, madam speaker tragedy, madam speaker, and frankly it highlights a number of issues that many of us have talked on the floor today. Its about mentally ill, its about what we can do as a country to make sure that, yes, we have a Second Amendment, and many of us here in this chamber, madam speaker, are gun owners, but i do believe that we are all for responsible gun ownership. And i do believe that there are reasonable restrictions that can be put in place. But today, madam speaker, its not about that for us, today i rise because americas hurting. The country is looking for answers. Answers that im not so sure will come immediately. As we look at the pictures of these first graders, these kindergartners, and ask why. Those answers wont come today. Those answers might not come next week. What we do know is that our job, our basic function is to make sure that we try to provide an environment throughout our country where people can achieve their dreams t that ought to be something that, again, is not a republican idea or democrat idea. Thats an american ideal and American Dream. A very sick individual robbed 20 children, six adults of their American Dream. Id like to think that they are in a better place today. I take some solace in my faith that i dont understand the grand plan. That the good lord does. But what i will say is that we all believe that this was a senseless killing and tragedy. I hope we can learn from it. I hope those in newtown, connecticut, feel the warmth of the nation that is sending their thoughts and prayers to them, this day, especially as we look forward to the holidays in front of us we will all say a special prayer for those that have been lost so needlessly in this act. I hope our country can come together. I hope we can focus on the American Dream and the opportunity for all children and all americans going forward. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields. The chair recognizes thea. Oregon, mr. Defazio, for five minutes. Mr. Defazio i speak on the floor today, the republicans are in conference with speaker boehner, talking about and getting an update on the socalled fiscal cliff negotiations. Now, there seems to have been some progress. A number of us are opposed to the idea of already reducing further the already inadequate cola granted to seniors on Social Security, but in some other areas there does seem to have been meaningful progress. I