[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 204 (Thursday, December 14, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8032-S8033]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



           Fifth Anniversary of the Sandy Hook Mass Shooting

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am on the floor this afternoon to mark 5 
years since the unthinkable--since 20 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds and 6 
of their educators were killed in an elementary school in Connecticut. 
It changed the town of Newtown. It changed this country in the way that 
we think about gun violence. And it certainly changed me. I want to 
offer a few thoughts today as we once again memorialize those beautiful 
children whose lives were cut far, far too short.
  It is easy to spend today--especially those of us who come from 
Connecticut, who are very intimately connected to the tragedy and to 
those families--drowning in sadness. There is really no way to conceive 
of what it is like as a parent to lose a child that young, in that 
manner, in 5 short minutes in a hail of bullets emanating from a 
tactical assault weapon. Twenty kids who had just walked into their 
classroom, bright and cheery, were gone.
  It is easy to hang your head, thinking of all of the things that 
haven't happened. I have been down to this floor over 50 times, often 
at my wit's end, raising my voice at my colleagues in frustration at 
our quiet and unintentional endorsement of the slaughter that happens 
in this country because we haven't passed a single piece of legislation 
trying to make sense of our Nation's gun laws. In fact, to the extent 
we have made changes in gun laws, it has compounded the problem, not 
remedied it.
  But I want to spend my brief time here today not focusing on the 
sadness of today--it is there; it is inescapable--and not focusing on 
what we haven't done but focusing on so many miracles, big ones and 
small ones, that have occurred in and around the lives of those who 
have been affected in Newtown, CT, over the last 5 years.

  First, there are these individual miracles that have happened within 
these families. Again, very few people understand the kind of crippling 
pain that comes with this loss. While these families will never be the 
same, they have found ways to rebound. They have found ways to still 
capture joy in their lives. Some have added to their numbers by 
welcoming new children into their family since then. They have 
rediscovered passions. They have made sure that the surviving 
children--the siblings--have been able to live lives of optimism rather 
than live lives of perpetual fear.
  I have gotten to know so many of these families. The parents and the 
kids are now close, personal friends of mine. Watching the rebirth of 
these families instills a sense of faith in the human spirit that is 
hard to explain. Those are small miracles, but they are important ones 
to remember on this 5-year anniversary.
  The miracles also come in ways that lives have been changed and saved 
through the efforts that have sprung forth out of this tragedy. So many 
of the families joined together with their friends and started up small 
charitable organizations in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, trying 
to find a way to take the beauty of these kids and transfer it to 
others. They are almost too numerable to mention.
  The Ana Grace Project gives out a scholarship every year at Western 
Connecticut State University for incoming freshmen who are interested 
in studying music because for her whole life, Ana Grace was surrounded 
by music.
  The Vicki Soto Memorial Fund donates five books every year to every 
K-6 classroom in her hometown of Stratford. She was one of the 
teachers--heroes of that day. Kids have the opportunity to read and to 
learn to love reading--which is what she taught to these kindergarten 
kids--because of her foundation.
  The Charlotte Helen Bacon Foundation pays for therapy dogs for kids 
and families in need, reflecting Charlotte's love of dogs.
  The Catherine Violet Hubbard Foundation opened an animal sanctuary on 
32 acres in Newtown to help animals that had been rescued from abusive 
or neglectful environments because of Catherine's love of animals.
  The list goes on and on. These are small, beautiful miracles that are 
happening all across Connecticut and all across the country in trying 
to honor the memory of these kids and their educators.
  Then there are miracles that have happened in the context of public 
policy. A year ago this week, I sat at the White House with a few of 
the Sandy Hook parents, quietly in the back of an auditorium, as 
President Obama signed into law the 2016 Mental Health Reform Act, 
which would not have become law without the input and activism of the 
Sandy Hook parents and many other survivors of gun violence.
  Our gun violence problem is not a mental health problem, per se. 
There is no inherent connection between mental illness and gun 
violence. But there is no mistaking that the shooter in Newtown--as has 
been the case in so many other of these mass slaughters--had deep 
mental health problems that went untreated. There have been public 
policy victories.
  So today, on the 5-year anniversary, I hope that my friends here will 
celebrate these small but meaningful miracles that have happened over 
the last 5 years, and I hope that you will be reminded that we cannot 
take one day or one moment for granted. Those moms and dads who sent 
their kids to school that morning never imagined that would be the last 
time they would be able to interact with their children. So none of us 
should think that we will have another chance to say what we want to 
say to somebody we care about. None of us should think we can put off 
saying ``I love you'' for another moment. Those small things that we do 
for each other matter desperately.
  I think about one story that I will leave you with from that morning. 
Daniel Barden is one of the young boys killed in that elementary 
school. His older brother went to school at a different time than he 
did. He would get up earlier and go down to the bus stop earlier than 
Daniel would, so they normally wouldn't really see each other in the 
morning. For some reason, the morning of the shooting at Sandy Hook, 
Daniel got up earlier than he normally did. He saw that his brother was 
at the end of the driveway waiting for the bus. He ran out of the house 
and down the driveway to say goodbye to his brother--goodbye for the 
day. It was just a small, tiny act of kindness that Daniel thought 
probably would be forgotten by his brother by the end of that day, but 
it has meant the world to that family, the idea that Daniel got the 
chance to walk down the driveway and say goodbye to his brother before 
he went to school that day and never came back.
  Don't ever think you will have another chance to say what you want to 
say to a loved one, to someone who means something in your life.
  A few months ago, one of the Sandy Hook parents arrived unexpectedly 
in my office. I got word from the front desk that she was there. She 
just wanted to stop in for a few minutes. I said: Of course, send her 
back. This mom had lost her child. I have come to know her very well. 
She burst into my office and she flung her arms around me and she 
whispered into my ear: Keep going. She unclasped her arms and looked at 
me and said: That is all I wanted to come and tell you. After a few 
pleasantries, she walked out the door.
  Keep going. That is what Newtown has done over the last 5 years. That 
is what those families have found the courage to do over the last half 
a decade.
  For those of us who believe the laws of this country must change in 
order to protect kids like those who lost their lives in Sandy Hook, it 
is what we do. As we mark 5 years since the violence at Sandy Hook 
Elementary School, we keep going.
  I yield the floor.

[[Page S8033]]

  

  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, all postcloture time is yielded back.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Ho 
nomination?
  Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Cochran) and the Senator from Arizona 
(Mr. McCain).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. 
Manchin) and the Senator from Washington (Mrs. Murray) are necessarily 
absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 317 Ex.]

                                YEAS--53

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Lankford
     Lee
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Shelby
     Strange
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--43

     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Kaine
     King
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Markey
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Cochran
     Manchin
     McCain
     Murray
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table and the President 
will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The Senator from Utah.

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