On the recordJuly 14, 2022
Mr. President, 2-year-old Aiden McCarthy was lying bloodied and pinned underneath his unconscious father when he was found--just a toddler, Aiden was still in diapers, had somehow lost one shoe and was down to just one blood-soaked sock, with scrapes across his body. It was last Monday, July Fourth, and Aiden was rescued from the site of a massacre, from the site of the latest mass shooting that has marred our country and left scarred all those who bore witness to its senseless terror. I was at a nearby parade in Illinois when I heard about the shooting. I rushed to the emergency operation center and was there the moment the police came in and told us that two Good Samaritans had found this young boy sheltered under his father's body. When Aiden was rescued, he kept asking for his mom and his dad. But, tragically, horribly, we later learned that they were never going to be able to comfort him ever again. Both his mother and father were among the seven people murdered during that Fourth of July parade shooting in Highland Park. Their names were Irina and Kevin McCarthy And they, like so many of us, had spent that holiday morning eager to take pride in our country, eager to celebrate the freedom and goodness and greatness that has defined our Nation since its first breaths on that first July Fourth, eager to celebrate America at her best. Instead, they experienced the very worst of it.…
Source
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