[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 57 (Wednesday, March 29, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H1616-H1618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TRAGEDY AT THE COVENANT SCHOOL IN NASHVILLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. McGarvey) is 
recognized for one-half of the remaining time until 10 p.m. as the 
designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. McGARVEY. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks 
and to submit extraneous material into the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Kentucky?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McGARVEY. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening as the convener of 
the Congressional Progressive Caucus Special Order hour.
  We had been planning today to talk about the different budget 
priorities between Democrats and Republicans. Those are the things I 
care about. Those are the things I care a lot about. Those are the 
things I came to Congress excited to address, but we can't talk about 
those things today, because, once again, we are seeing our children 
slaughtered in their schools.
  Monday morning, I dropped two of my kids off at their elementary 
school. I actually went in and talked to their class for career day. 
Their teacher let them give me a hug and walk me back to the front 
before I got in the car, got on the plane, and came to Washington.
  While I was in the air, the tragedy at the Covenant School in 
Nashville unfolded. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.
  Unlike in years past, from Uvalde to Newtown, I haven't been able to 
hug my own kids yet since the tragedy in Nashville, but those parents 
in Nashville and in so many schools across this country will never be 
able to hug their babies again.
  We should be outraged. Outraged. Three 9-year-old children were 
ripped apart from their families by an assault-style weapon in their 
school, in the place we send them to learn, to grow, to be safe, and to 
feel safe.
  What is more outrageous than three 9-year-olds being slaughtered by 
an assault-style weapon in their school? It is the 13th school shooting 
this year--this year--in 2023. It is the 13th school shooting this 
year.
  It would be gut wrenching and awful if it were 13 school shootings in 
13 years. It is the 13th school shooting this year.
  Now, thank goodness for the courage, the bravery of the National 
Police Department and the first responders who kept this tragedy from 
impacting more families, but it should have never happened in the first 
place.
  What are we doing? What are we doing here to stop this, to protect 
our kids? I heard one of my colleagues from the State where this 
happened say on the steps of this very building, ``There is nothing we 
can do.''
  I can't accept that. As a policymaker, I can't accept that. As a 
parent, I can't accept that. You can't say there is nothing we can do 
when you are willing to do nothing.
  I am a person of faith. We raised our family in the church. I believe 
in the power of prayer, and I am glad that our thoughts and prayers are 
with the families in Nashville, but thoughts and prayers will never be 
enough. We must look at legislation and take action so that there are 
no more school shootings, and we don't have to comfort families who 
have lost their kids because they simply went to school.
  There are things we can and should do. Commonsense reforms that will 
keep our kids and our people safe. Let's start with universal 
background checks. Ninety percent of the American public wants us to 
have universal background checks, where to buy a firearm in this 
country, you have to get a background check so that we know you are not 
in crisis or otherwise ineligible to buy a firearm.

  Instead, we see extremists in the other party willing to put gun 
manufacturers over people. We should ban assault weapons. These are 
weapons of war that have no place on our streets.
  Just today, on the front page of The Washington Post, there is an 
expose on the AR-15. It goes into the detail we have far too often 
sanitized about what an assault-style rifle does to the body of a 
person and the body of a child. It has rendered kids unrecognizable in 
school shootings such as in Uvalde, Texas.
  There was a product in the 1980s, lawn darts, that was dangerous for 
kids. We banned that; but we are not willing to ban these assault-style 
rifles? That is because extremists right now want to put guns over 
kids.
  Let's talk about extreme risk protection orders. Measures that would 
actually keep people safe by temporarily removing a firearm from 
someone who is in crisis. We can't talk about gun violence in this 
country without recognizing that 60 percent of the gun deaths in 
America are death by suicide. It could help other people, as well.
  I have a constituent, Whitney Austin. She was a mom. She was a 
project manager at Fifth Third Bank. She traveled up to Cincinnati from 
Louisville, Kentucky, to go to work. As she was walking into the office 
building, she was shot 12 times as part of what ended up being a mass 
shooting in Cincinnati. She never considered politics or gun policy 
before, because Louisville, like so many places in this country, is a 
small place. We call it ``Louis-village.''
  She was friends with a person I went to high school with, and before 
she got home from the hospital, she said, What can I do to help? I met 
her in her house the day she came home. Her hair was still wet from 
having washed the blood out of it. We worked on legislation in the 
Kentucky General Assembly, legislation that I introduced with a 
Republican colleague from a rural part of our State that would keep 
people safe while respecting people's rights. Instead, we see, again, a 
party willing to put guns over people.

[[Page H1617]]

  Let's talk about responsible gun ownership and laws that would 
encourage safe storage. Look what happened a couple weeks ago in 
Houston. A 3-year-old shot and killed her 4-year-old sister. A couple 
of days before that, a 7-year-old boy in Cleveland died from a 
suspected accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.
  Just last month, a 3-year-old boy in Orlando and a 4-year-old boy in 
Nashville each shot themselves dead with guns they found. A month 
before that, a 6-year-old girl in Virginia accidentally shot and killed 
her teacher in Virginia.
  These are toddlers; but we see people willing to put guns over kids. 
We must try to do something. Bring these measures to a vote. Bring 
these measures to the floor. Let us vote on them. Tell the American 
people that you believe in guns over kids instead of universal 
background checks.
  We have got to do something. We have had 38 mass shootings this month 
alone, and so far, 130 in just the first 86 days of this year. More 
than 10,000 gun deaths, and we are not even out of March.
  Bring this to a vote. Replace thoughts and prayers with legislation 
and action. Instead of legislation and action, what we are getting from 
extreme MAGA Republicans are slogans, not solutions.
  We are hearing slogans like ``Guns Make Us Safer.'' How can you say 
that when guns are now the leading cause of death for children in this 
country?

                              {time}  2045

  Will the measures I have mentioned end gun violence in America? No, 
of course not.
  Will they save lives? Yes, absolutely they will, and they will make 
our children safer. There is no doubt about it.
  Every day that we delay, every day that we continue to refuse to take 
action, to put guns over people and guns over kids, we will almost 
certainly cause unnecessary death.
  I spent 10 years in the State Senate of Kentucky. During that time, I 
was in the minority. For 10 years, I worked to represent my 
constituents but always found common ground. That is what I came to 
Washington to do, to continue to try to find common ground.
  We cannot compromise when it comes to our kids' lives. To all of my 
colleagues in this body, neither should you.
  Today, I am just another dad in America who is sad for the parents 
who won't have their kids with them this Easter, sad for the parents 
who have lost their children to the senseless scourge of gun violence; 
angry, hurting, looking to Congress to act; pleading with my colleagues 
to bring these bills up for debate and to a vote to stop putting guns 
over kids.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. 
Lee), my colleague.
  Ms. LEE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the 
students, teachers, parents, and loved ones across western Pennsylvania 
who are still reeling from what we all thought was our worst fear come 
to life today.
  Just days after families in Nashville went through an unimaginable 
hell of losing their 9-year-old children because they had the audacity 
to attend a school in America, we received word about an active shooter 
situation back home in Pittsburgh, first at Central Catholic High 
School, then Oakland Catholic, and eventually a dozen of our schools 
across Pennsylvania.
  Imagine that you are a kid in Central Catholic. You have gone through 
the active shooter drills, and you saw the news Monday and heard about 
every school shooting prior. Today, you get a text that a gunman has 
entered your school.
  You are wondering if you will be shot. Will it be your friends who 
are shot, your classmate, your teammate, your teacher? Can you protect 
them, or should you run? Do you have time to text your parents one last 
time?
  Imagine that you are a teacher hysterically crying to the dispatcher 
a minute after you heard the news. You realize the lock on your door is 
broken, so you start building barricades with desks and chairs. You ask 
your students to protect themselves by whatever means possible, from 
the metal rod in the closet to the acid chemicals in the physics lab.
  Imagine that you are a parent and receive that phone call or text. 
Your heart stops. Your world freezes, and your mind starts to race. Can 
you get to the school on time? Will you ever hug your baby again? Will 
they meet you at the reunification spot?
  Active shooters, hoaxes, evacuations, active shooter drills--this is 
no way for our kids to live.
  This is disgraceful, and no, to my colleagues across the aisle, this 
is not normal. Active shooters aren't normal. Shooting hoaxes aren't 
normal. The evacuations and the active shooting drills aren't normal. 
There is nothing about this that is normal.
  Guns are the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 
1 and 18--not car crashes, not illnesses or accidents. It is guns.
  Tomorrow, we will send our students back to those buildings where 
they experienced that immense trauma and fear. We will expect them to 
pretend it is a normal day. We will expect them to continue to learn, 
perform, and be attentive in the same classrooms that they were just 
barricaded in.
  Thankfully, unlike the students, teachers, and families in Nashville, 
Michigan, Uvalde, Parkland, Sandy Hook, or too many others who were 
gunned down to count, they won't have to cry over their classmates' 
bodies or see their empty chairs when they return to school because 
this time, it was just a hoax--not a hoax. It was a swatting of 
children in schools in this era of heightened fear and vigilance around 
an epidemic of school and other mass shootings.
  Thankfully, today, it wasn't dead children back home in Pittsburgh. 
It was ``just'' traumatized children.
  It doesn't have to be this way, and it wouldn't be this way, but it 
is this way because Republicans care more about guns than our kids, 
worshippers in a church or synagogue, or shoppers in a Walmart.
  Republicans want to control what books you read. They want to control 
what history you learn. They want to control how you identify, who you 
can love. They want to control our bodies.
  They want to control everything except that which could prevent 
preventable mass deaths of children and students and worshippers and 
shoppers.
  In the only country on Earth where this is a problem, they will not 
control the proliferation of guns in this country.
  For those of you who say it is too political to ask that we put an 
end to bullet-ridden babies in body bags and traumatized kids doing 
active shooter drills in their elementary schools, I ask you to stop 
putting your politics over our children's lives.
  Mr. McGARVEY. Madam Speaker, the comments from my colleague from 
Pennsylvania make me think back to last spring after the Uvalde crisis. 
I said every policymaker in the country should have had to drop their 
kids off at school the day after that shooting.
  It was all over the news, and we didn't know whether to show our 
twins, our fourth graders, what was going on. I wanted to talk to them 
about it and ask them if they were okay, ask them if they felt scared.
  My son looked at me and said: ``It's okay, Dad. We practice active 
shooter drills in school. We'll be ready.''
  No child should have to comfort their parents in that way. We should 
be working to protect our kids from this scourge. Instead, we see a 
party putting guns over our kids.

  I got an email after the Nashville shooting from the dad of a friend 
of mine from law school. He wrote to me and said:

       Thank you for such a heartfelt, meaningful comment on the 
     Nashville school tragedy. Too bad others don't have the guts 
     to say what you did.
       I don't know if you heard from my son, but one of the three 
     9-year-olds who died was my granddaughter's friend and 
     basketball teammate. Nine years old. Think about that.
       This is something simply impossible for me to process, and 
     how do you explain it to a child?
       The boilerplate thoughts and prayers we still hear from 
     those who refuse to do anything to stop the gun violence 
     won't help my granddaughter understand why her friend had to 
     die from a bullet.
       The gun advocates are all about their constitutional right 
     to bear arms, yet this grandfather wonders about a 9-year-
     old's constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
     of happiness, something which far too many of our children 
     are being denied. It's just so sad.

[[Page H1618]]

       Thank you again for saying exactly what needs to be said 
     again, again, and again until this craziness comes to an end.

  We control that, Madam Speaker. We have some say in whether this 
craziness comes to an end from commonsense, publicly supported reforms: 
universal background checks, banning assault weapons, extreme risk 
protection orders, making sure we have responsible gun ownership, 
making sure that guns are no longer the leading cause of death among 
our children.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________