Political Quotes

“as my colleagues know, I come to the floor every week or so to share the stories of those victims who have been lost to the epidemic of gun violence that is plaguing this Nation. The news covers the episodes of mass shootings, such as those that happened in my State in Sandy Hook, but, of course, on average there are 80 people who are killed in episodes of gun violence every day. Approximately 50 or so of those are suicides, the remaining 30 are in ones and twos and threes and fours and fives all across the country. I think the data alone is overwhelming, and I am not sure why the numbers alone have not caused us to act. There are a variety of ways that we could step up and act. We could do something about illegal guns on the street, we could fix our broken mental health care system, and we could give law enforcement more power so they could track illegal guns and criminals. But we don't do any of that. We remain silent and complicit even with this rash of murder. The data hasn't moved this Congress, and so my hope is that the stories of those who have been lost and the families they have left behind might move this place to action. So today I will focus on those victims of gun homicides who were at the hands of their domestic partner. Of those 30 or so people who are killed by guns that are not suicides, an alarming percentage of them every single day are killed by someone they know--a husband or a spouse or a boyfriend.…”