Political Quotes

“I am on the floor this afternoon to mark 5 years since the unthinkable--since 20 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds and 6 of their educators were killed in an elementary school in Connecticut. It changed the town of Newtown. It changed this country in the way that we think about gun violence. And it certainly changed me. I want to offer a few thoughts today as we once again memorialize those beautiful children whose lives were cut far, far too short. It is easy to spend today--especially those of us who come from Connecticut, who are very intimately connected to the tragedy and to those families--drowning in sadness. There is really no way to conceive of what it is like as a parent to lose a child that young, in that manner, in 5 short minutes in a hail of bullets emanating from a tactical assault weapon. Twenty kids who had just walked into their classroom, bright and cheery, were gone. It is easy to hang your head, thinking of all of the things that haven't happened. I have been down to this floor over 50 times, often at my wit's end, raising my voice at my colleagues in frustration at our quiet and unintentional endorsement of the slaughter that happens in this country because we haven't passed a single piece of legislation trying to make sense of our Nation's gun laws. In fact, to the extent we have made changes in gun laws, it has compounded the problem, not remedied it.…”