[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 162 (Monday, December 17, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H6814]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     MOMENT OF SILENCE IN MEMORY OF VICTIMS OF CONNECTICUT SHOOTING

  (Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, on Friday morning, I brought 
my 4-year-old to school. I dropped him off at 8:45, just like millions 
of other parents did all across this country, and a few hours later I 
saw him again. He had a big smile on his face.
  In Newtown, Connecticut, on Friday, 20 parents dropped their first 
graders off at Sandy Hook Elementary or kissed them good-bye as they 
got on the school bus, and that was the last time they saw their kids.
  Something horrible, something unexplainable happened at Sandy Hook 
Elementary last week. When people ask me how are folks doing, I tell 
them right now there's a lot of blank looks, these people are just 
trying to process what happened. Twenty gleaming, beautiful children 
were gunned down, along with six adults who loved them dearly, by a 
young man with a sickness that masqueraded as evil that day.
  So we are left asking all these questions: Why? Why us? Why these 
little kids? Why did he do it? Why weren't we able to prevent this from 
happening? The whys are almost infinite.
  In the coming days and weeks, I guess we'll get some answers to these 
questions, but most of them won't have answers. But when you peek 
through this vast crippling darkness of the last 4 days, there's one 
answer that we know for certain. If we ever wondered what kind of 
community Newtown was, if we ever doubted the deepness of our love for 
one another, those questions have been answered, and they've been 
answered definitively.
  They were answered by Principal Dawn Hochsprung, who told her 
colleagues to run one way so that she could run the other way, directly 
toward the gunman. They were answered by Victoria Soto, who hid her 
kids in a closet and died shielding her students from the assassin's 
bullets. And they've been answered by the thousands of individual acts 
of humanity that have overflowed from the people of Newtown in the days 
since the shooting, a community just pouring out love trying to help 
console this incalculable grief.
  I went to the first of too many funerals this morning, and the last 
thing we know is this: All those wonderful little faces that you see on 
TV and in the newspaper, like Noah Pozner, who was laid to rest this 
morning, they're a reminder that despite the terrible and awful things 
that happened, that inside the hearts of all of this is this 
unbelievable goodness. That's all Noah Pozner had was goodness, was 
just this purity of spirit.
  Newtown is going to survive this because it's a close town. They hurt 
more because they're close, but they also can survive because they're 
close. And they can also survive because they will get this inspiration 
from these 20 little kids who are asking this town to remember how good 
they were and try to equal that.
  As Newtown wrestles with this grief and recovery, the thoughts and 
the prayers from others matter. I want to thank everyone here for all 
of the individual love that you've showered down upon our little town. 
I want to thank the Connecticut delegation here with me today for all 
of their support. It helps in some small way to know that the world is 
grieving with us.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the House now rise and observe a 
moment of silence for the 20 beautiful children and six courageous 
adults who perished on a crisp, cold Friday morning in Sandy Hook, 
Connecticut.
  The SPEAKER. The Chair would ask all present to rise and observe a 
moment of silence.

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