Political Quotes

“I rise tonight to express my deep sadness for the families and victims of yesterday's high school shooting tragedy in California. Yesterday, Charles ``Andy'' Williams, a 15-year-old high school student, snapped. By all accounts, this was a child who was a frequent victim of bullies and was picked on by others at school. A troubled child is a sad reality in America today, but a troubled child with a gun is a tragedy waiting to happen. Gun safety is not the only issue this tragedy highlights. We need to encourage adults and students to listen more carefully and take swifter action when young people make threats of gun violence. We need more counselors in our Nation's schools who can help young people deal with the pressures of growing up. But we also must prevent troubled children from obtaining firearms. Once again, I come to the floor to renew my plea--the American people's plea--for Congress to do the right thing, to pass commonsense gun safety legislation. We can continue to throw our hands in the air, shrug our shoulders, and hope this problem will go away by itself-- sadly, we know better--or we can begin to face the reality of our situation: We live in a country populated by 281 million people and an estimated 200 million firearms.”