[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 186 (Thursday, December 6, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H14452-H14453]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1645
                          OMAHA MALL SHOOTING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, today I rise with a very 
heavy heart. Yesterday, our Nation witnessed yet another act of gun 
violence, this time at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska. I know my colleagues 
from Nebraska are going to be talking about this later. My hearts go 
out to them for the people that they represented. Eight people were 
murdered in the rampage. Five others were wounded, two critical. These 
victims did nothing wrong to deserve their fate. They were mothers, 
fathers, sons and daughters. They were just trying to do their 
shopping, and many of them were working at the mall. But the actions of 
a crazed gunman changed that in a matter of seconds.
  Yesterday's shootings was a terrible tragedy. But unfortunately 
events like this happen almost every day. Every year we lose over 
30,000 people to gun violence. Take a second to think about that. Every 
year, 30,000 victims. I have been here for 11 years. That is 330,000 
people that have been killed because of gun violence while I was in 
Congress. When you want to put that in perspective, that is the City of 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Three hundred and thirty thousand victims.
  When you think about it, what these families are going to be going 
through in the months ahead with the holidays coming, the pain they are 
going to be facing, the community, the pain they are going to be 
facing, I know a lot about that. Tomorrow is December 7. December 7. It 
was 14 years ago that we had the Long Island Railroad massacre. On that 
particular day, six people died, one of them my husband. On that day, 
19 people were injured, my son critically. Fourteen years later, he is 
still suffering from that.
  We, as a Nation, have to start looking how are we going to have this 
dialogue? I have never tried to do anything to take away the right of 
someone legally to be able to own a gun, and yet because of the way the 
laws are in this country and the way we do things backhandedly in this 
country, it is so easy to get guns. If you want to talk about what the 
health care costs are, it is over $100 billion a year the health care 
costs for those that survive these kind of incidents.
  Think what we could do with that money. Maybe we could educate our 
young people and reach out to them a little bit better so they don't go 
into the world of violence. Maybe they won't join gangs. Maybe a good 
mental health program for this Nation so those like the gunman wouldn't 
have fallen through the cracks and gotten the help that he needed.
  We, as a Nation, on a daily basis, face inconveniences. Tonight when 
I fly to go home, I will be getting on a plane. I am going to be going 
through security, all in the name of security and safety. When you go 
to get your driver's license, long lines. We do this for security and 
safety. It is an inconvenience. Getting a passport today is an 
inconvenience. Can't we serve a little bit of inconvenience and come 
together to make sure that those that are getting guns have the right 
to have a gun by passing background checks? Can't we make sure with a 
little inconvenience that we don't make it so easy for these

[[Page H14453]]

guns to float throughout our cities and come into some of our cities 
illegally? We cannot save everybody. I understand that. But think about 
if we could cut it down to maybe just 15,000 people a year dying. As 
far as I am concerned, one person dying is one too many.
  I promised my son as he was recovering many years ago that I would do 
whatever I could to prevent another family from not going through what 
our families did. And here it is 11 years later. Here we had a terrible 
tragedy yesterday in Nebraska. Not long ago, we had a terrible tragedy 
at Virginia Tech. Before that, we had another terrible tragedy at 
another mall in the Midwest. We can think about all these terrible 
tragedies that are happening more and more not just in our inner cities 
now but in places in our country that we never thought we would ever 
see gun violence.
  This Nation needs to decide what it is going to do to stop this 
rampage of unnecessary killings of innocent people. Three hundred 
thirty thousand people killed in the 11 years I have been here, I hope 
we can do better. I pray for the families. I pray for the communities.

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