[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 18 (Thursday, January 30, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Page S650]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REMEMBRANCE AND RESOLVE

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, every January brings hope that the New 
Year will be a happy and safe one. But, sadly, 2014 has already been 
marred by gun violence.
  To cite just a few examples, on January 9, a 16-year-old student at 
Liberty Technology Magnet High School shot a classmate in the thigh 
with a pistol. On January 14, a 12-year-old in New Mexico walked into 
his middle school's gym and opened fire with a shotgun, injuring two of 
his classmates as they waited to go to class. And on the evening of 
January 15, a man used a semi-automatic handgun to murder two people at 
an Indiana grocery store. He was about to kill another person just 
before police officers shot and killed him.
  Sadly, our Nation's epidemic of gun violence continues. The National 
Center for Injury Prevention and Control has estimated that around 
30,000 people in the United States die from gunshot wounds every year, 
and more than 60,000 people are injured by guns every year. A study 
also has shown that the firearm homicide rate in our Nation is 20 times 
higher than the combined rate of 22 other countries comparable in 
population.
  We live in a country where almost every week a community is wracked 
by a mass shooting, defined as an incident that claims at least four 
lives. In 2013, our Nation witnessed at least 25 such shootings. These 
occur all over our Nation, in places like Oklahoma City, where last 
August a man who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia stopped taking 
his medication and shot his mother, sister, niece, and nephew; in 
Ottawa, KS, where last April a man who had served prison time for 
attempted second-degree murder shot and killed 4 people; in Washington, 
DC, where a mentally deranged individual killed 12 and injured 8 at 
Washington's Navy Yard.
  Last December, just one day before the anniversary of the tragic 
Newtown school shooting which stole the lives of 27 people, 20 of them 
children, another school shooting occurred in Arapahoe, CO. This time, 
the perpetrator was an 18-year-old high school senior who entered his 
high school near Denver armed with 125 rounds of ammunition, a pump-
action shotgun, a machete, and three incendiary devices. He critically 
injured a classmate, who has since tragically passed away, before 
taking his own life. While this may not qualify as a mass shooting, it 
is no less troubling. It is a testament to how disturbingly numb to gun 
violence our society has become that the sentiment ``it could have been 
worse'' is some form of relief.
  Today, America is a nation where parents are nervous to send their 
children to schools, shopping malls, and movie theaters because they 
are genuinely afraid that their kids might not come back. We live in a 
nation where toddlers find unsecured handguns in their family's homes 
and accidentally take lives. We live in a society where arguments and 
disputes turn into tragedies, all with one ill-considered pull of a 
trigger. Is this the kind of environment we want to live in? Is this 
what we want to leave for the next generation?
  Mr. President, it is my hope that this year, the procession of gun 
tragedies will begin to end. It is my hope that we will not be 
submerged this year in the horror of a mass shooting. But this hope 
will only be realized if Congress takes action to stop the gun violence 
plaguing our country.
  I urge my colleagues not to accept the status quo, where convicted 
felons, domestic abusers, and the mentally ill can get their hands on a 
deadly weapon at any time. I urge my colleagues to take steps toward 
ending this violence by passing commonsense legislation, supported by 
90 percent of the American people, that would enact background checks 
on all gun sales. I urge my colleagues to work to ensure that our 
homes, our families, and our neighborhoods become safer.

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