Earl Blumenauer: “I am proud to have spent my adult life in public service, but one element that disappoints me is the failure of our…”

“I am proud to have spent my adult life in public service, but one element that disappoints me is the failure of our society to address the critical problem of reducing gun violence in our society. Since I started my career, over 1 million Americans have become victims to gun violence. This is more than all the Americans who have died in all the battles since the Civil War. One of the reasons, I think, that we have failed to make progress in reducing this epidemic of gun violence is because we have failed to put a face on a million victims. One of the things that I would like to do, as a small contribution towards the reduction of this gun violence, is to help put faces on those victims. We cannot afford for them to be anonymous. Today I would like to spend a couple of minutes talking about young Kevin Imel. He was visiting a school mate during spring vacation. The evening before, an 11-year-old friend had been playing with his parents' gun. The guns were not safely stored. They did not have trigger locks. They had bullets. Kevin was not comfortable and would not play with his friend and made it clear to him. The next morning as they were watching Saturday cartoons, the friend suggested again that they play with this gun. Kevin was evidently forceful in indicating that one should not play with guns.”