On the recordFebruary 14, 2024
Today is Valentine's Day, but I don't celebrate Valentine's Day anymore. I haven't celebrated Valentine's Day in 6 years. Today is a difficult day for myself, many in the city of Parkland, and my constituents. You see, it is the sixth anniversary of the mass shooting at my high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas in my hometown of Parkland. I remember February 14, 2018, like it was yesterday. I was in Tallahassee when my wife called and said something terrible has happened at the high school around the corner from our home. I was informed that there had been a mass shooting. I immediately traveled home to Parkland. I went to the school that I graduated from and saw what it looks like when your high school is turned into a war zone. I then went to the hotel where they were keeping the families of the kids who were missing. I knew they weren't missing. For 8 hours, they waited in that hotel while the Broward Sheriff's Office and the FBI told them what happened to their kid. They pulled families out one by one into a separate area of the ballroom separated by a partition. The process went on from 12:30 in the morning until 3 in the morning. I didn't hear crying. I heard screaming. It haunts me every day. Madam Speaker, 17 innocent people didn't make it out of that building on that fateful day. I knew we had to do something, and so I brought my colleagues from the Florida legislature to see the building firsthand and see how it affected families in my community.…
