[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 194 (Wednesday, December 14, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7171-S7172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



           Remembering Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise as so many of us are talking about 
today and reflecting upon the massacre in Newtown, CT, Sandy Hook 
Elementary School, 10 years ago today.
  I rise for two purposes: One is to commemorate those who lost their 
lives that day--especially the children, 20 children, as well as 6 
adults--to remember each of them today but also to commend and salute 
the work done by families and so many others across this country to 
make some measure of progress, limited though it has been, to reduce 
the likelihood of more gun violence across the country.
  I wanted to start, though, Madam President, by reading the names and 
the ages of those who perished on that day at Sandy Hook Elementary 
School. For each individual, I will read their name and then the age 
they were on that day.
  First, Charlotte Bacon, 6 years old; Olivia Engel, 6; Dylan Hockley, 
6 years old; Madeleine Hsu, 6; Catherine Hubbard, 6; Jesse Lewis, 6; 
Ana Marquez-Greene, 6; James Mattioli, 6; Emilie Parker, 6; Jack Pinto, 
6 years old; Noah Pozner, 6; Caroline Previdi, 6; Jessica Rekos, 6; 
Avielle Richman, 6 years old; Benjamin Wheeler, 6; Allison Wyatt, 6; 
Daniel Barden, 7 years old; Josephine Gay, 7; Chase Kowalski, 7; Grace 
McDonnell, 7, just age 7.
  They are the children, and here are the adults who were killed on 
that day:

[[Page S7172]]

Victoria Soto, 27 years old; Rachel D'Avino, 29; Lauren Rousseau, 30; 
Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, 47 years old; Anne Marie Murphy, 52; and Mary 
Sherlach, 56 years old.
  When we remember those children and adults who were killed on that 
day, unfortunately for the Nation, it didn't stop there. And just as I 
have read those names, we could continue reading names from other 
cities and other years under different circumstances but all leading to 
the same place: death and darkness because of the scourge of gun 
violence all across America.
  The children of Newtown, CT, came before the most recent massacre of 
children in a school in Uvalde, TX. There were many front-page 
newspaper stories in 2012 on this day--or I guess tomorrow; it would be 
tomorrow's newspapers--across the country. We had little, small 
pictures of each child and each adult.
  I saved one from the Wall Street Journal. It was on my desk for a 
long time, and then I ultimately had it matted. But I still have one 
just from May of this year that is still in its newspaper form from 
Uvalde, TX--the same newspaper, the Wall Street Journal. But you could 
pick any paper in the country in 2012 or this past year. That tells us 
all we need to know.
  So, as we remember and reflect upon that loss, I believe today it is 
also important to remember and commend what the parents did, what the 
families did, what their friends and relatives and supporters did, what 
volunteers did, all these years, who didn't know these families.
  But let me start with the parents. These parents, of course, were 
consumed by grief, as anyone would be. But somehow--somehow--although 
they were consumed by their grief, somehow, by way of their own courage 
and the grace of God, they figured out a way to come together in common 
purpose, remembering and trying in their own way to pay tribute to 
their children, to form organizations which have been highly successful 
in making the case as to why we have to take action here on the Senate 
floor and not far away on the House floor, to take action on gun 
violence.
  For example, groups like Sandy Hook Promise and Newtown Action 
Alliance and so many others and related groups that have sprung up got 
involved in the debate and made the case to legislators personally. 
Parents burdened by their own grief made the case to legislators. The 
progress has been all too slow, but because of the courage of the 
parents of those Sandy Hook children and because of so many other 
families and parents who have loved and lost, we made some progress 
just this past year.
  But, unfortunately, in the last 10 years, it took thousands more mass 
shootings and hundreds of thousands of gun deaths for Congress to 
finally act. Let me say that again--hundreds of thousands of gun 
violence deaths for Congress to finally act.
  This past summer, we even had Republican Senators join us--not enough 
but enough to pass a bill in the Senate--to pass a bill that had 
commonsense gun safety measures in the bill. This bill that passed this 
summer not only will save lives, but there is some evidence it is 
already doing that, by some of the data and analysis done by law 
enforcement.
  But this bill, if anyone is being honest about it--this bill, this 
effort, this ongoing effort to reduce gun violence deaths, has to be 
just the very beginning of our work. People are still being killed and 
injured by gun violence every day in cities and communities all across 
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and across the Nation. We owe it to 
the families of those 20 children and those 6 adults who died in 
Newtown, CT, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and so many other places 
that we can name and catalog here today. Because of the length of that 
list, we don't have time to go through all of them today.
  We have work to do to make sure that we not only pay tribute to those 
families who have loved and lost and done so much to help other 
families, but we owe so much to them in the form of passing 
legislation.
  We have to continue to make sure that those who lost their lives on 
that awful day--a day that most Americans will never forget--we have to 
make sure that all the efforts that their parents undertook and that 
their family members undertook will not be in vain.
  We have more work to do to pass commonsense gun safety measures. My 
God, a background check supported by 90 percent of the American people 
has not yet been passed into law, but it will be. We are going to get 
there here in the Senate and across the country.
  So we have more work to do, but on this day, as we commemorate and 
reflect on those young souls we lost, we also have to be positive about 
what their families have done since that day, showing uncommon courage 
and dedication to not just the memory of their children but to the 
betterment of the country as a whole.
  I yield the floor.
  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. SHELBY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The senior Senator from Alabama.