Chuck Schumer: “Mr. President, this afternoon we are talking about education legislation. Today, all of our thoughts and prayers go to…”

“Mr. President, this afternoon we are talking about education legislation. Today, all of our thoughts and prayers go to one school in Littleton, CO. Yesterday's massacre is all too familiar. It is America's recurring nightmare. It leaves us shocked and numb. It takes away our innocence. It makes children afraid to go to school. This morning I had breakfast with my daughters. I do that every day before they go off to the schoolbus. Usually, it is routine, but today the conversation was a little different, both for me and for my girls. Yesterday, as we sat transfixed to our television sets praying for those caught in the crossfire and hoping for an explanation of the carnage, we heard the same phrases that we heard in Pearl, in Springfield, in Jonesboro and Paducah. "This is a quiet town." "Nothing like this happens here." "We do not have crime problems in this town." "It didn't seem real." "This is a good school." "Could it have been prevented?" "How could someone be so distraught to murder, and, yet, no one in authority knew?" "How did they get a gun?" "What can we do?" The same words each time. Each time there is a new tragedy, we act as if this will be the last in a list of school shootings. But it is not the last.”