[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 85 (Wednesday, June 16, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H4349]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1030
               PENNY CHANG WAS THE TYPICAL AMERICAN GIRL

  (Mrs. JONES of Ohio asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, Penny Chang was the typical American 
girl. That is what her father said about his daughter after Penny was 
shot to death on her way to school. She lived in my district, a 
freshman at Shaker Heights High School.
  Penny's promising young life was ended by a 21-year-old man as she 
walked to school one morning. She was shot twice at close range with a 
semiautomatic pistol. As she lay on the ground dying, she was shot 
twice more. She loved computers, had done well in school.
  After this despicable act, this troubled young man turned himself in 
to police shortly after, admitting to the crime. He had been a patient 
in a psychiatric unit. He had set Penny Chang's house on fire.
  How could someone like this get ahold of a gun? How could a person 
with this kind of record of behavior come into possession of a 
semiautomatic handgun? Today the House has an opportunity to enact gun 
legislation, gun safety legislation, gun control legislation. I pray we 
will act to protect our young girls from this type of behavior so that 
we can save other Pennys in this Nation.

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