[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 80 (Thursday, May 11, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H2251]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      GUN VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Casten) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CASTEN. Mr. Speaker, in the 10 years since the Sandy Hook 
shooting, the NRA has spent more than $100 million to help elect 
Republicans who will make it easier to sell more guns so we can kill 
more kids--$100 million.
  They have gotten what they paid for because we have had 189 more 
school shootings and 279 people killed on school grounds since Sandy 
Hook.
  Some of my colleagues may be happy about that, but I am angry, and my 
constituents live in trauma.
  Mr. Speaker, I had a student in my district who wrote in to tell me: 
``We are tired. We are exhausted. We are sick of going to class and any 
public area and forming an escape route.''
  I had another constituent who asked me: ``How many children and 
teachers are going to have to be killed by guns before our government 
takes action?''
  The honest answer is that I don't know. In the wake of these 
shootings, I have to tell them that I work with people who wear AR-15 
lapel pins on the floor of the House, people who send holiday cards 
where their whole family cosplays as Rambo. They actually believe that 
our Founders envisioned and designed a country where you have a right 
to shoot innocent strangers dead, but no American has the right not to 
get shot.

  Five months into this year, America has already had 199 mass 
shootings. Sometimes, we have a moment of silence on the floor 
afterward, but quite frankly, there are too many to keep up. I am not 
proud of this, but we ignore most of them. The American people can't.
  I had a mother who wrote to me saying: ``Each day, as I send my two 
children off to school and daycare, I find myself fearing that it may 
be the last time I will see them.''
  Another wrote to say: ``I am the parent of a 5-year-old. I cannot 
believe that we are living in a country where 5-year-olds die like 
soldiers at the mall and where another mother will come home today 
without her child. I do not feel safe in public places. I have no peace 
while my child is at school, and because I am a teacher, I don't feel 
safe at work either.''
  Five months into this year, we have had 15,166 deaths due to gun 
violence. Yet, my colleagues across the aisle have not allowed a single 
bill to come to the floor to address that risk.
  After the shooting at Covenant Elementary in Tennessee, I got this 
message from Meaghan, a student teacher. She said:
  ``After working in over five schools now, I have loved every moment 
of my teacher education experience, meeting so many amazing students 
and faculty members that have shaped my mind the way I hope to for my 
own students one day. And each day I have gone in, I have to admit, I 
have silently wondered if I would come out, if our kids would come out, 
if my peers would come out, if my teachers and mentors would come out.
  ``I have caught myself dozing off and imagining what I would do if 
someone came into our room with a gun. I have imagined every person in 
that room with bullets in them and blood splattered from the walls to 
the floors.
  ``I know you all get these messages in your offices. Do you read 
them? Do you understand the fear, the trauma, and the death that your 
inaction has caused? Is it worth the NRA money? Do you even care?''
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks 
to the Chair.

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