Rod Blagojevich: “Today there is a new epidemic threatening our children: handgun violence. We know that handgun violence affects more…”

“Today there is a new epidemic threatening our children: handgun violence. We know that handgun violence affects more than 10 times as many children as polio ever did. In fact in many States, handgun violence is the leading cause of death among children. But we are fighting handgun violence with only 1 percent of the resources we used to fight polio. We should confront handgun violence with the same urgency that previous generations brought to the leading health epidemics of their time. If we could find a vaccine for polio, we can find a solution to handgun violence. A sure way to show our commitment to that effort, I urge my colleagues, is to vote for my bill that would ban handgun possession by anyone under 21.”