Mary Gay Scanlon: “The American people know that we cannot sit idly by and watch preventable gun deaths happen day after day, year after…”

“The American people know that we cannot sit idly by and watch preventable gun deaths happen day after day, year after year. Over the past few weeks, I have heard from hundreds of constituents of all ages and all walks of life who are demanding action to reduce gun violence. When our Framers gathered in Philadelphia to write the Constitution, they were explicit about the purposes of that entire document: . . . establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense''--not individual Armageddon--``promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'' With those words, our Government was created to meet the needs of the people. But how can we meet the needs of the people if we don't take action to prevent them from being gunned down in their schools, workplaces, houses of worship, or neighborhood streets? How can we be faithful to the purposes of the Constitution while allowing the routine terrorization and slaughter of our children, neighbors, teachers, doctors, and seniors? I refuse to tell the American people, and particularly our children, that they must be sacrificial lambs to a twisted theory of armed Second Amendment liberty that defies the express purposes of our Constitution by undermining the general welfare and destroying domestic tranquility. The American people know, as well as we do, that the time is now to act.…”