On the recordJune 24, 2022
I thank the distinguished chairman who has done so much on this issue for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. More than 15 years ago, I was chairman of Fairfax County when the Virginia Tech tragedy occurred. We buried six young people in my community that week--six. I am still in touch with those families, and the emptiness in their souls will never go away. Today, we have an opportunity to choose: will we protect our children, or will we continue to persist in an abstract ideological commitment to an absolute reading of the Second Amendment which is false, and a false reading of the Constitution. We can do something finally. America demands we do something. We need to disenthrall ourselves from the gun mythology and do the right thing: protecting our communities and our children.
