Political Quotes

“Madam President, since the failure of the gun bill on the floor of the Senate, I have tried to come to the floor every week or so to talk about the voices of the thousands of victims who have died from gun violence all across this country. About 30 people a day--not even counting suicides--die from gun violence. It is a travesty, it is a tragedy, it is a scourge on our country, and it is inflicting pain in our cities, in our suburbs, and the Senate and the House of Representatives--the most deliberative, the most representative bodies in the history of the world--are doing absolutely nothing about it. If you want to know why it continues, we can give a long list of reasons. There is no one panacea to solve the problem of gun violence. It is about tightening our gun laws. It is about better mental health programming, more funding. It is about addressing a culture of violence. But it is also about a signal that we send here, a signal of complicity. Our silence essentially sends a message to young men and women all across this country that we must be OK, we must be all right with epidemic levels of gun violence if the numbers continue to spiral upwards and we do absolutely nothing about it. The statistics alone tell you we should step to the plate and change our laws, address the problem, give new resources. But seeing that those numbers and that data have not really moved the Senate to action, maybe the voices of the victims will.…”