[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 57 (Wednesday, March 29, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1533-H1534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WE ARE FAILING OUR YOUTH, AND THEY KNOW IT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SCANLON. Madam Speaker, we are failing our youth, and they know 
it.
  I rise today to share the voices of our children, the voices of those 
who attend schools where, once again this week, young lives were lost 
to gun violence that Congress refuses to prevent.
  My office runs a Congressional Youth Cabinet, a nonpartisan program 
that gives high school students the opportunity to learn about our 
government and share their views. We meet every couple of months during 
the school year, and they select topics for discussion at each meeting.
  Last weekend, the topic was gun violence. The next day, six people 
were slaughtered in yet another school shooting. Three of them were 
only 9 years old.
  As I struggled to find words to convey, once again, the urgency that 
Congress act, I turned to the students in my youth cabinet. I asked 
them what

[[Page H1534]]

they would say if they had the opportunity to address Congress. Here 
are their voices, the voices of America's youth.
  Claire: ``It is terrifying to see another school shooting on the 
news, and even scarier that this is an almost normal thing. As 
students, we just want to be safe to learn and grow. . . . I feel, and 
I have heard this from a lot of kids, I can't walk down the hall 
without looking for a safe place to hide in case something happens. It 
really messes with your head.''
  Zeyan: ``Gun violence feels normalized and ingrained. My school had a 
lockdown drill today, yet afterward, we went on with our day like the 
need for a lockdown drill is trivial and not disturbing. I hope 
legislators understand how drastically gun violence can alter students' 
daily lives and thoughts.''
  Tyler: ``It is really hard to stay optimistic as a young person when 
we see these tragedies again and again.''
  Lindsay: ``All those kids did today was go to school on a beautiful 
Monday morning. But instead of making paper cutouts of Easter bunnies 
or painting eggs, they were shot and murdered. [That] school is a 
private Christian school. Prayer takes place in every single one of 
those classrooms, including where third graders were shot to death. 
Prayers did not stop our children [from being slaughtered with] guns. A 
lock on the door did not stop the killer from coming in. Legislators . 
. . can stop this.''

  Several observed that easy access to guns is a major driver of school 
shootings.
  Kiona said: ``These situations happen so frequently, it makes me 
question how easy it is to get a firearm or assault weapon in this 
country. We could have prevented more of these situations.''
  Quin: ``For me, gun violence is personal. Lives like ours are on the 
line. On the news, time and time again, I see my own communities 
attacked, from the Lunar New Year Monterey Park mass shooting to the 
Club Q nightclub shooting. Our schools are not safe. It is clear that 
gun violence targets vulnerable people of color and LGBTQ+ people. . . 
. Guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens.''
  Noah: ``We need to stop treating shootings like isolated events and 
think of them as part of a whole. It wasn't just one person with a gun 
today in Nashville or in Colorado Springs or in Uvalde. It was a web of 
corporate greed, insufficient legislation, and hatred.''
  Eliot: ``I am a senior in high school, and I have been directly 
affected by four separate instances of gun violence in the past year. I 
was in lockdown . . . during the Highland Park shooting . . . at the 
same time my close friend was hiding in a church [during an active 
shooter situation] at a concert. . . . Our school recently lost a 
classmate to gun violence, and we had a lockdown because of a threat of 
a shooting. . . . The lack of action is alienating my generation. We 
are supposed to be the `future of our democracy.' Our experiences of 
gun violence are more common than instances of legislative progress. We 
are told we are supposed to save democracy, to save the planet, but no 
one is saving us, and we notice that.''
  This last line really sticks with me. Our kids are being asked to put 
our democracy and our collective future first, but their country and 
their Representatives in Congress are not putting them first.
  It breaks my heart to hear the fear, anger, cynicism, and 
hopelessness in our children's voices. We are failing our youth, and 
they know it.
  Doing nothing is unacceptable. If you don't have any solutions, then 
you need to get out of their way.
  Our kids deserve action now.

                          ____________________