[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 21, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H1734-H1735]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                 A CALL FOR ACTION AGAINST GUN VIOLENCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am saddened and angered that the high 
school in my district, Great Mills High School, in St. Mary's County, 
was the site of the most recent school shooting, of which there have 
been 17 just since the beginning of this year.
  Two students were injured, and the gunman, also a student, was 
killed. And an entire community of parents, students, teachers, and 
faculty has been shaken by this violence.
  If it had not been for the courage and quick action of the school 
resource officer, Blaine Gaskill, and local law enforcement, the 
casualties might have been far, far greater.
  Blaine Gaskill is a hero, as are the teachers, students, and other 
school personnel.
  Tim Cameron, the sheriff of St. Mary's County, and the sheriff's 
office, of which Blaine Gaskill was a member, responded exactly as they 
had practiced: efficient, effective, and caring.
  Kathy O'Brien, who heads up a place called Walden in our county and 
in southern Maryland, was on site within an hour, dealing with the 
crisis and the mental health challenges it caused.
  Principal Jake Heibel made sure the school responded effectively. The 
superintendent of schools, Dr. James Smith, had made sure that the 
school would act in a way that was appropriate.
  We thank all of them.
  But, Mr. Speaker, our Nation is suffering from a crisis of gun 
violence. It has affected schools, places of worship, entertainment 
venues, city streets, and other places where a lot of people 
congregate.
  No other industrialized society or nation faces such a crisis, and 
that is because, in America, our laws allow almost anybody to access 
dangerous firearms, almost no questions asked.
  Furthermore, we allow the sale of assault rifles of the kind used by 
soldiers in the battlefield, designed to kill a lot of people quickly.
  In this instance, it was a handgun, a Glock. I do not know the 
capacity of the magazine that was used, but it was not an assault 
rifle.
  This Republican-led Congress, Mr. Speaker, has chosen to follow the 
lead of the NRA and do nothing of substance.
  We did pass a bill the other day that gave schools some help, some 
grant money, to ensure the safety of their schools. That was 
appropriate to do. But they could do that now on their own. We will 
help, that is good, but it does not address the real problem. Perhaps 
that was the point.
  And America's students, however, Mr. Speaker, won't have it. I had 
the opportunity last Wednesday to stand with thousands of students who 
walked out of their schools, walked into democracy, and marched to the 
Capitol to call for action against gun violence.
  These young people, Mr. Speaker, displayed the best of America, using 
their voices and their actions, to promote a just cause and a worthy 
effort to make our Union more perfect.
  The other Members and I who joined these young Americans could see 
that they do not take this and other national challenges lightly. 
Indeed, they had much to say about the future they want for our country 
and for the role they want to play to shape it.

[[Page H1735]]

  One of the students, Mr. Speaker, from Maryland, Matt Post, spoke 
extraordinarily eloquently.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record his remarks.

       My name is Matt Post. I'm a twelfth-grader, the Student 
     Member of the Board for Montgomery County, and, I think, as 
     students we need to make a few things clear.
       To start, we will not sit in classrooms with armed 
     teachers. We refuse to learn in fear. We reject turning our 
     schools into prisons.
       We will accept nothing less than stricter gun control. If 
     it's what it takes, we are going to shame our national 
     policymakers into protecting us, not just in schools but in 
     churches, movie theaters, on the streets, and for the 
     communities of color who are disproportionately devastated by 
     the sickness of gun violence.
       The lawmakers who fail to support us, those who look for 
     every answer to our nation's gun problem but the guns 
     themselves, are complicit in every single death that comes 
     after. To every politician sitting in the Capitol behind us, 
     you get to decide who lives.
       And so, this is not a partisan issue for us. There's 
     nothing cosmetic about life or death. This is about our basic 
     morality as a country.
       When the commander-in-chief's solution to this gun epidemic 
     is more guns, you know we have a moral problem in the White 
     House.
       When national policymakers value the blood money of the NRA 
     over the lives of children, you know we have a moral problem 
     in the Halls in Congress.
       And when this is doomed to happen again--when, in the 
     coming weeks and months, more of my peers will be slaughtered 
     in their own classrooms, when their deaths will be dismissed 
     as collateral--you know we have a moral problem in this 
     country.
       So let's make one last thing clear: their right to own an 
     assault rifle does not outweigh our right to live.
       The adults have failed us. This is in our hands now. And if 
     any elected official gets in our way, we will vote them out 
     and replace them ourselves.
       `Enough is Enough!'

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to read the remarks in their 
entirety, but I do want to highlight one thing Matt had to say, which I 
thought was so profound.
  He concluded his remarks by saying: `` . . . their right to own an 
assault rifle does not outweigh our right to live.''
  His right to live is guaranteed by the Constitution as well.
  There were many others like Matt, Mr. Speaker, other student leaders 
from our area, who stood up and spoke out and roused their peers to be 
engaged.
  Along with Matt, I want to recognize Brenna Levitan; Eri Shay; Emily 
Dohler Rodas; Michael Solomon; Nate Tinbite; Christian Crawford; and a 
student from American University, who helped them organize, Aaron 
Thorp.
  These student leaders, and their many peers who marched with them 
last week, deserve to be heard in the Halls of Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, we must not fail them.
  Like the young leaders of generations ago, of centuries ago, a 
millennia ago, these young leaders are calling to our conscience to 
take action, and we must not fail them.
  We must not fail the students and teachers and parents of Great Mills 
High School in St. Mary's County; or Marjory Stoneman Douglas High 
School in Parkland, Florida; or Marshall County High School in 
Kentucky; or Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon; or Sandy 
Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut; or Virginia Tech; or 
Columbine; or any other school that has witnessed the carnage of a 
school shooting.
  Mr. Speaker, we must take real action--action to make our schools and 
our communities safer from gun violence.
  I am proud to stand with the young Americans who walked out--and I 
thank them for their passion and their advocacy--and who say they do 
not want to go to school and be afraid.
  One young woman said the first thing she does when she goes to school 
now is to look for a place to hide.
  Mr. Speaker, we must do better than that. I will continue to work 
closely with the community in Great Mills in the days and weeks ahead, 
as we try to heal and move forward.
  But, Mr. Speaker, in order to do that, this body, the people's body, 
who raise our hand and swear an oath to the Constitution and the laws 
of our country, designed to create a more perfect Union, a Union in 
which the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is 
protected by the people's House, Mr. Speaker, let us act.

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