Val Demings: “I want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an…”

“I want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about an all-too-familiar topic, and that is gun violence in America, mass shootings in the United States of America. A few days ago, I purchased a card of sympathy for the family of a young man who died way too soon. The card that I finally chose read: ``I hardly know what to say.'' When I think about yet another mass shooting in a country where, through ingenuity and determination, we have solved some of the world's toughest problems and challenges but yet we have chosen to do nothing about mass shootings, I hardly know what to say. Mr. Speaker, you know last week a man used a semiautomatic rifle to brutally murder 17 children and educators in Parkland, Florida. Unlike past shootings, we have not just moved on. This is because of the survivors--not our generation doing something, but the children. It is because of them. You see, this generation believes that they can change the world. I mean, isn't that exactly what we as parents taught them, that they can change the world? They believe in what President Obama called the audacity of hope. Not our generation, but the generation of our children and grandchildren.…”