Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it is with sadness and reflection that I take a moment today to remember the shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, OR, 20 years ago. At the time, we thought of Thurston as a tragic anomaly and not as the forerunner of the horrific epidemic of gun violence in our schools we are living today. This plague rips away the lives of children and teachers, forever wounding the body and spirit of entire communities which never truly heal. Twenty years have passed since a 15-year-old Thurston student went to his school, after killing his parents in their home, and opened fire on his classmates, but the rollcall of mass shootings and gun violence continues to grow. In my own home State of Oregon, in the past 20 years, we endured Thurston, Reynolds High School, Clackamas Town Center, and Umpqua Community College, among other acts of gun violence. Every time, we say this will be the last, and every time, it is not. Even one, the shooting at Thurston, is too long a list, in my book; yet, tragically this epidemic of gun violence struck yet another community just last week in Santa Fe, Texas. The students, teachers, families, and communities devastated by the mass shootings at Thurston, Newtown, Parkland, Santa Fe, and all of those not listed here deserve and rightfully demand so much more than thoughts and prayers. They demand action.…”