Randy Weber: “I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for his service to the people of Arkansas and the people up here in this very humble…”

“I thank the gentleman from Arkansas for his service to the people of Arkansas and the people up here in this very humble institution. Mr. Speaker, today marks the 5-year anniversary of the shooting in Santa Fe High School where 10 innocent lives were lost at the hands of evil. We will never forget that. We will never forget that tragic day that has forever changed Santa Fe, Texas. My heart and my prayers still go out to the family and friends of those we lost, and I remain immensely grateful to the law enforcement officers who responded to that scene at their own peril. Mr. Speaker, it is often a good guy with a gun that stops the bad guy with a gun. In Santa Fe, Texas, it was a brave law enforcement officer. Let me tell you that disarming legal gun owners will never, ever make us safer. There are, however, Mr. Speaker, steps that we can take to secure our schools without infringing on our citizens' Second Amendment rights. There is no reason why our schools should be soft targets. We clearly have the resources and the means to protect the most precious amongst us, and that is going to be our children and their teachers. Mr. Speaker, we should do everything we can to help school districts. We can hire armed professional police officers to help protect our schools, the kids, protect their teachers, and the staff. Following the shooting in Santa Fe, I participated in roundtable meetings to discuss that very thing; namely, enhanced security for our schools.…”