Yvette Clarke: “I thank my colleague for yielding. Madam Speaker, I've joined my colleague, Dr. Donna Christensen, Representative of the…”

“I thank my colleague for yielding. Madam Speaker, I've joined my colleague, Dr. Donna Christensen, Representative of the Virgin Islands, here tonight in remembrance of the 20 first-grade children and six educators who were mercilessly gunned down last Friday at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, innocent victims of senseless gun violence. To the families, educators, and the community of Newtown, Connecticut, on behalf of the people of the 11th Congressional District of Brooklyn, New York, I wish to express my most profound and deepest condolences. I believe, like so many across this Nation, that the families of these victims, the families of children in every community in the United States, have some very important questions for Members of Congress. I also believe that as their representatives we have an obligation to provide them with answers. Question: Why? Why have we allowed our communities around this Nation, from a supermarket in Tucson, Arizona to a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, to a shopping mall in Oregon, to an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, to the streets of Brooklyn, New York, why have we been so reluctant in protecting them? Why have we left them unprotected, vulnerable to gun violence, death, and the terror that such actions inflict? Who will speak for the people whose lives were cut short, struck down, maimed and traumatized for life?…”