On the recordDecember 17, 2012
As a mother and grandmother, I offer my words to the mountains of condolences to the families of the 20 children and the six heroic adults in Newtown, Connecticut. All of America is mourning with you, but we owe you more than our grief and our condolences. It is almost unthinkable that a school could be the scene of such horror. Parents across the Nation are worrying about how to keep their own children safe, and the terrible truth is that children in the United States are 13 times more likely to be killed by gun violence than children in other industrialized countries. We need to close the gun show loophole and require criminal background checks for anyone purchasing a gun--a proposal supported by 74 percent of NRA members and 96 percent of all Americans. We must outlaw assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips. These are weapons of mass destruction made for the military battlefields, not our neighborhoods. It is time to grieve. It is time to act to end the gun violence before we lose more of our precious children and loved ones.
