On the recordMay 25, 2022
it seems very appropriate that Senator Murray, our chair of the HELP Committee--she and I--I am the chair of the Finance Committee--often work together on these issues. As Northwest colleagues, we see how serious and how incredibly damaging the last 24 hours have been to our country. I am going to speak in a few minutes about a Health and Human Services nomination, but I want to pick up where Senator Murray left off with respect to guns and specifically talk about the atrocity--the atrocity--that took place yesterday in Texas. I think Senators can barely begin to imagine the pain the families in Texas are feeling at this moment. They are living every parent's worst nightmare. This morning, around the country millions and millions of parents dropped kids off at school, and they were fearful. In a country that we all believe is and must continue to be the greatest country on Earth, parents drop their kids off at school in fear that a gunman would walk into their classrooms and murder them. Let's think about that. And it has been going on for decades--decades--in our country. We can remember the sinking, empty feeling after Sandy Hook. For a few days, there was a glimmer of hope that the Senate would do something on a bipartisan basis, but then the other side caved to the gun lobby. Congress has done nothing in response to all this carnage in our schools, in our grocery stores, in our churches.…





