Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to join my colleague Senator Heinrich and others who have come before. I am calling on Senator McConnell to act now to address the gun crisis in our country. Every day that the Senate Republican leaders refuse to act, they are making a choice to be complicit as more lives continue to be lost. People across my State and the country want to see action, and they are tired of waiting for it. I have met with countless families across New York who have lost their children, spouses, friends, community members, and neighbors to gun violence. I have met people who have survived mass shootings and people who live every single day with the threat of gun violence in their neighborhoods. I have heard their stories and seen how their lives have been torn apart by gun violence. Today I want to tell some of those stories to you. Robert Gaafar, one of my constituents from Long Island and a father of young children, was at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas for work. He heard loud popping noises and soon realized they weren't coming from the performance on stage but from a gun. As the shooter fired round after round, Robert hid behind a metal vending machine for protection. The bullets being fired around him were so powerful he could actually feel the shock waves. He said that he would never forget the silence of 20,000 people at a concert or the horrific screams of grown men and women he could hear as the gunman reloaded. He was lucky. He survived.…”