Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. This morning, I saw the news that the North Carolina Little League State championship was canceled. That is right. Why? An active shooter. I saw the frantic video of a mom holding her handheld video of what was going on. Frankly, it reminded me of the congressional baseball practice in Alexandria a few years ago when our Republican whip, Steve Scalise, was seriously injured and, frankly, lucky to still be alive. My son played on that field, which is walking distance from my home. Some of my staff actually walked by that morning, not having a clue what was going on. This bill would change that. It would provide some resources--not an arm or a leg, but maybe what it takes for a traffic safety study--to provide an alert system across the country on your cell phone when an active shooter might be close by. It would work like an AMBER Alert system, just like I received when I landed at O'Hare yesterday, coming back to Washington. My phone went off, as others' did on my flight when it landed, looking for what may have been a child predator. A few years ago, six folks were shot and killed in Kalamazoo, in my district, next to the campus of Western Michigan University, a campus of some 20,000 students, at about midnight. No alert system was sent. I believe that this legislation, had it been in place then, may have saved some of those folks who were killed that night.…”