Barbara Boxer: “I want to set into the Record a series of facts, a series of statistics, a series of numbers. I know sometimes when you…”

“I want to set into the Record a series of facts, a series of statistics, a series of numbers. I know sometimes when you lay down a series of numbers such as this, people's eyes glaze over and they lose track of what you are talking about. I urge everyone listening to this to think not about the numbers so much as the people behind the numbers. In the year 1997, which is the last year for which we have statistics, 32,436 people died from gunshots in America--more than 32,000 people. I want everyone to think about what it would mean to you if any of these 32,000 people were from one of your families, what it would mean to you if it was your dad, if it was your mom, if it was your child, if it was your grandma, if it was your grandpa. Twelve children die every single day from gunfire. Actually, if you average it out, it is between 12 and 13 children under the age of 18--each and every day. Our children are dying. And what are we doing? We are dithering around doing nothing about it.”