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




          THIRTEEN SCHOOL SHOOTINGS IN FIRST 3 MONTHS OF 2023

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Massachusetts (Mrs. Trahan) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. TRAHAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart and a 
level of anger shared by millions of Americans, millions of parents.
  On Monday, three 9-year-old children and three adults were gunned 
down at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooter, armed 
with not one but two assault weapons, broke into the school and stole 
the lives of innocent people simply going about their day.
  For my colleagues across the aisle not keeping track, the massacre 
was the 130th mass shooting of the year. It was the 13th school 
shooting of 2023, and that is only if you count the time someone was 
injured or killed when a gun went off on school grounds.
  Thirteen times over the past 3 months, parents have dropped their 
children at the bus stop or at school. They told them they loved them, 
to have a great day, and that they would see them when they got home. 
Then, they got the call that every parent fears, the one that wakes us 
up in the middle of the night.
  Thirteen times this year, parents in a city or town hung up that 
phone or turned off their TV and raced to their children's school.
  Thirteen times parents waited behind police tape, hoping to hear 
something about their son or daughter.
  Madam Speaker, how many more times are we going to let this happen?
  How many more times can my colleagues across the aisle tweet their 
thoughts and prayers but say that their hands are tied on gun safety 
legislation?
  How many more Christmas cards of Members of Congress holding AR-15s 
do we need to see while students in their classrooms practice active 
shooter drills?
  School shooting after school shooting, Congress has had the 
opportunity to act.
  We have the legislation to ban assault weapons, like the rifles used 
in Nashville on Monday.
  We have legislation to require background checks on every gun 
purchase so firearms aren't falling into the hands of people who 
shouldn't have them.
  We have legislation to prevent someone convicted of a hate crime from 
being able to purchase a gun.
  What this Chamber doesn't have enough of is willpower. It doesn't 
have enough courage to act. This inaction is shameful, and as a parent, 
it is disgusting.
  Apparently, the Republican leadership in the House thinks that the 
biggest issue facing our children today is the books in their library 
because while we have yet to take up a bill to stop school shootings, 
the number one killer of our children in America, this Chamber passed a 
bill last week to politicize our kids' education--a bill, by the way, 
that they didn't even have unanimous Republican support for.
  I mean, what are we doing here?
  I have to go home tomorrow and look my 8-year-old daughter in her 
eyes, 1 week before she turns 9, and tell her that three more kids were 
shot and killed in their classroom, but mama can't get half of her 
colleagues in the Congress to care enough to do anything about it.
  How can anyone in this Chamber be okay with telling their kids or 
their grandkids that?
  How can you see the kids who are taking pictures right outside on the 
Capitol steps and do nothing to prevent their school from being next?
  How can we call ourselves the greatest country in the world when its 
elected leaders sit on their hands while children are murdered hiding 
beneath their desks?
  We can't, and to those of you deflecting or giving up, you should be 
ashamed.
  Madam Speaker, I implore you to go back to your party's leadership, 
go back to Speaker McCarthy and tell him that we need to end the gun 
violence epidemic that is plaguing our children. Do it before it is too 
late for another school, for another family.

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