Alan Lowenthal: “Dallas, Texas; Falcon Heights, Minnesota; Baton Rouge, Louisiana--these are not individual incidents occurring in a…”

“Dallas, Texas; Falcon Heights, Minnesota; Baton Rouge, Louisiana--these are not individual incidents occurring in a vacuum outside the orbits of each other. These tragedies are tied together by the threads of anger and fear. They filled me with horror, with sadness, and grief. I know that we as a nation cannot allow ourselves to grow numb to this. Each of these deaths, each of these innocent lives lost, should cause each of us great sorrow and pain. They should pain us not just for the simple loss of human life, but also for the realization that their deaths--and the more than 90 people who die from gunfire each day in this Nation--are the painful signs that something is profoundly wrong in our society. Let us begin the healing and let us unite by passing no fly, no buy and universal background checks. As the President has said, ``We are better than this.'' ____________________”