Cory Booker: “Member after Member has come down tonight to speak, and the conversation, as we all have come down here, was to come do…”

“Member after Member has come down tonight to speak, and the conversation, as we all have come down here, was to come do something that I think is extraordinarily poignant. This is the floor where policy is debated and where ideas of governance are discussed. It is a deliberative body, but we are in a democracy, and we represent people. So, tonight, the idea was that we would come down here and talk about people, but the pain is that they are not alive; that we would discuss the deceased, the dead, the murdered, the killed. I believe that if America has not broken your heart, then you don't love her enough. Name after name tonight has been spoken by colleague after colleague, and, dear God, every single name is a son or daughter. It is a brother or sister. It is a family member. They are a person, part of a community, and they are dead. But this is not just any limited list. It seems to grow like a cancer on the soul of our country. You take my age, 51 years old. Well, in just the time of my life, the death in our country has been something like has never before been seen in even a country at war because the people who have died, the human beings who have been lost, the family members who have been slain, their total number, in just my lifetime, add up to more than all of the Americans who have died in every single war from the Revolution to our current wars in the Middle East.…”