At twitter, someone identifying themselves an american gun Violence Prevention Organization founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and his husband captain mark kelly. Gabby is here to share a few remarks. Ill hand it over to mark. Good afternoon, everybody. Today is a very dark day for our great country. Thousands of lives are forever changed by what happened last night in las vegas. Over 55 people are dead. Wounded, and been this tragedy thousands of people. They will have to learn to lead very different lives. As gabby has. As i have. They are not alone. We are not alone. Every year roughly 33,000 people die from guns. Over 100,000 more are shot. This is the worstcase scenario. Its launted our dreams. Haunted our dreams, that we would wake up to the gabby and i acre are heart broken. Days like today remind us and many others how quickly things can change. We are angry. But we also have a choice. We can offer thoughts and prayers and move on through life numb to these losses. Can accept these galing reality. We can accept the wounds. Social, moral and economic costs imposed on this country by accepting gun violence as simply the cost of living in america. Or we can choose courage. We can decide that this problem is worthy of our greatest efforts. We can reject the idea that this is inevitable. We can distance ourselves from dogma and political point scoring. We can also reject special interests. We can demand that the leaders we elect go to work in the building behind me and the one right down the street dont have the option to say this is just too hard. What were hearing today at the capitol and the white house are thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers are important. We send our thoughts and prayers too, but they are not enough. Your thoughts and prayers arent going to stop the next shooting. Only action and leadership will do that. For years gabby and i have been working to get the people in this building to summon the courage to take meaningful action that make our communities safer places to live. But despite the tragedies in places like aurora, newton, orlando, despite daily shootings in communities across america, despite senseless deadly gunrelated Domestic Violence, despite an epidemic of preventable suicides, despite the problem of toddlers shooting toddlers and their parents, the response from congress has been to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Incredibly congress is currently working on legislation that would weaken our gun laws. Imagine how much worse last nights shooting could have been if the gunman had a silencer. Imagine the confusion for First Responders if they arrived on the scene to a bunch of civilians wielding their own guns, attempting to return fire. Imagine the gun lobbys version of society. Everyone armed. Everyone out for themselves. Everyone at risk all of the time. Folks, thats just going backwards. We do not have to live this way. Here in america we are 25 times more likely to die from gun violence compared to people in other industrialized countries. In fact, no other country like ours comes close. This must stop. My fellow americans, we dont have to accept this as normal. Its not normal. Its not inevitable. Its an epidemic that needs to be cured. D we need to marshal every resource and make every effort to stop people from dying. Make no mistake. There are steps that they can take today to address the over 33,000 gun deaths that occur in our nation every single year. If we want to make our country safer, we cant just be working defeat bad legislation. Like federally mandated [no audio] ut of the wrong hands. Recognizing that we have a gun violence problem and well work towards solutions. Americans need more than our president s prayers. We need his plan. We need a congress that will step up to the special interests, look to the evidence and act to save lives. Public safety must be our top priority. Gabby and i are in d. C. Today because we have planned on joining ralph north man, candidate on the campaign trail talking about how to keep our communities safer. Its because politics matters. Who we elect matters. Dont let anyone tell you not to talk about politics when we talk about guns. Gabby got into politics because she wanted to govern. The people we elect will either take us backwards, condemning us to many more days when we wake up to more carnage and more lost lives or they will take us forward towards a safer country. Here are a few things that our leaders can do and should do today that will keep americans safer. Pass universal background checks to make sure everyone gets a background check before they obtain a gun. The studies are clear. Where these laws are passed, fewer people get shot. Where they have been repealed, murder and violence has increased. Subject the sale of the most to stronger oversight and regulation. You can buy an ar15 in a parking lot with no background check at all. Thats crazy. Requiring guns to be safely secured in the homes of gun owners so kids cant get their hands on them. So unstable relatives dont have access to them. Stop domestic abusers from getting guns. Women are too often killed by abusers with firearms and most Mass Shootings start as Domestic Violence incidents. Allow restraining orders just like we do with a domestic abuser. To stop folks in crisis from accessing guns. Stop the trafficking of firearms from states with weaker laws to states with stronger laws. And require the c. D. C. And our other Public Health agencies to invest the resources to prevent gun deaths and injuries like we do for every other similar cause of death or injury. Nd as a first step, congress and were calling congress to do this to establish a special commission, equal parts, democrat and republicans, to come together towards solutions that will save lives. And finally, dont let anybody tell you that we need more giveaways to the n. R. A. , more profits for the gun industry. Does anybody actually believe that our gun laws are too strong . A break. Action to save lives is the only acceptable moral course for our country. Without action we are asking one person to be the next person, to die because of our weakness to address evil. And then another and then nother and then another. Gabby. Ms. Giffords the nations counting on you. Mark thank you, everybody. Yeah, ill take some questions. Inaudible] do you feel theres something in the legislative strategy that has failed . Rk go back to the columbine good point. Its the polarization of our politics. Its people lining up on the side of a powerful corporate interest with a lot of money who by the way happens to support a lot of candidates with a lot of resources to get them elected to office. And thats a problem. And it needs to be addressed. Reporter how do you overcome that . Mark weve been working to overcome that with the resources that we have. Right . To put the people in office that will accept this as a Public Health issue, that will work to come up with responsible and sensible solutions that by the way protect the Second Amendment. But at the same time keep guns out of the wrong hands. Now, the resources are not balanced. So we obviously are always looking, you know you know, its quite out of balance until we work on fixing Campaign Finance reform, it will stay out of balance. Reporter mark, if congress didnt do anything after gabby was shot and didnt do anything after orlando or sandy hook, what gives you any hope at this point theyll do something now . Mark right now theyre going in the wrong direction. There are a couple pieces of legislation up there thats working to make silencers readily available to everybody, where everybody can carry a gun basically in any state if they can carry in another state, getting rid of gunfree guns in schools. They are going in the wrong direction. We need to move them in the right direction. What it takes is for people that puts these folks in office to demand action. You know, make a phone call. Its pretty easy to do and not a lot of people do it. Call your member of congress. Call your United States senator. Call your governor and tell them that you want action. Reporter as a followup on that, what kind of legislation do you think would have best minimized the carnage in las vegas . Mark i outlined some things today. Right. Background checks for all gun sales is a good first step. Gun trafficking. Really taking a hard look at what kind of lethal weapons should we allow people to get easy access to. I mean, we dont have all the details in the shooting today but it was pretty clear he used some kind of automatic weapon. Maybe multiple automatic weapons to do this. I mean, these weapons are designed to kill a lot of people very quickly. Reporter you talked about the polarization of politics. How do you stop it . Mark one thing you can do is Campaign Finance reform is a good start. When we started americans for responsible solutions our goal was just to bring some balance on this issue and were working towards that goal. Weve helped pass 200 pieces of legislation in over 45 different states. On the state level weve done pretty well. We feel pretty good about it. But you know, washington, d. C. , much more difficult place. Reporter your response of trying to work on this issue from the inside. You have been working on the outside. [inaudible] mark every time somebody asks that question do i think about it. Gabby and i have been incredibly effective. Our organization in getting legislation passed in more than 45 state compols so were moving this in the right direction but until we seriously accept this and the people in that building accept this as a serious Public Health crisis on both sides of the aisle, we will have other Mass Shootings like this. Reporter what do you say to people, democrats there are people who agree with you on this issue broadly that coming out on this day of a shooting like this is politicizing it and not appropriate. Mark if not now, when . Right . Gabby and i have all those folks in our thoughts and prayers. We had over 50 americans die. 500 more injured by gunfire. Probably from a. 223 caliber round that can fly through multiple people and cause mass carnage. You know when you are not going to talk about it on a day like this, how many times can we say that over and over again, now is not the time . Well, today is the time. Reporter [inaudible] reporter [inaudible] mark theyre deadly because unstable people and people that shouldnt have access to these kind of guns can easily get them. I mean, why is this one worse than orlando . I dont know. Maybe after the investigation well find out what this guys intent was. Its its bret obvious he went after a group of people its pretty obvious he went after a group of people, ambushed a group of people that didnt have a lot of place to go and he had a lot of fire power so who knows. Reporter a lot what you are suggesting, [inaudible] australia. Will it ever be possible in the United States eliminate the gun culture that has special interests or are we going to be working around the Second Amendment for a long time . Mark im a gun owner. Gabby is a gun owner. I served our nation for 25 years in the United States navy. I flew in combat defending our constitution and the bill of rights, Second Amendment is important here in this country. However, you know, we can respect the Second Amendment and the rights of responsible gun owners and at the same time we can keep guns out of the hands of criminals, domestic abusers, you know, potential mass shooters and idiots. I mean, we can do that. You know, and we got 33,000 well, last year, actually, 2015 i think 35,000 americans died from gun violence. That number has been kind of trending up in the last couple years. Hey, theres more reason why it cant be 70,000. But if were smart about this and demand that these people in the building behind me take action, we can cut that number in half. Theres no reason why we cant. You t have to have you most know, most of the children that die in the industrialized world from gun violence die here in the United States. I mean, is that really what we want . The sad the sad thing is that we can fix this. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] and the u. S. House comes into session in just under half an hour, 2 00 p. M. Eastern. Lawmakers are expected to debate legislation to set up partnerships to clean up Water Pollution caused by coal mining and permits for Recreational Use of federal lands. Later in the week, legislation to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. And the House Republican budget resolution for 2018. We are also expecting speeches on the mass shooting in las night. St watch the house live here on cspan starting at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. Several members of congress and government officials are tweeting about last nights shooting including Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval who says, please find a blood bank and donate. Your donation is critical during this time of tragedy in our community. Also, indiana congressman Trey Hollingsworth posted, in the midst of senseless act of malice in las vegas, hoosiers across indiana are praying those affected find comfort. The sheriff of clark county, nevada, briefed reporters about the mass shooting. Well hear from Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and other officials. Well, good afternoon, everyone. I am sheriff lombardo for clark county. I dont have very much employer to