On the recordDecember 13, 2017
Tomorrow, December 14, marks the 5-year anniversary of the horrific school shooting in the home community of Sandy Hook Elementary School. That day shocked the Nation. Twenty schoolchildren and six educators--20 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds--were ripped from the community of Newtown and from the United States. I remember that day. I was a newly elected Member of Congress learning about what it means to serve in this august body. I was with about 40 or 50 of my colleagues learning about our duties when I started to get emails and text messages that something terrible had happened at home. By noon, I learned the worst. Dozens of children had been gunned down, in cold blood, along with their teachers. I threw my things in the back of the car and I drove from Boston. I called my mother, I called my minister, and I prayed for wisdom and I prayed for guidance and the courage to face those families. I arrived in Newtown while families were being notified that their children who they had put on the bus that morning, thinking about Hanukkah or Christmas or thinking about the snow that was already on the ground, would never come home. It is sad. It is sad and it is inexcusable that I stand here 5 years later. In that time, this Chamber, the people's House, has not taken up the people's business. As of this fall, in fact, over 90 percent of Americans still support having universal background checks on all gun sales to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people.…





