[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 9 (Wednesday, January 17, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H149-H150]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               UNLV STUDENTS AND FACULTY RETURN TO CAMPUS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Nevada (Ms. Lee) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. LEE of Nevada. Mr. Speaker, this is the first week of the 
University of Nevada, Las Vegas' spring semester, a time when students 
should be excited to see their friends after winter break and faculty 
begin to review the syllabus with an eager class.
  Sadly, this won't be a typical week back for the students of UNLV. 
That is

[[Page H150]]

because this week is the first week that students will be returning to 
in-person classes since last month's horrifying shooting in which a 
gunman took the lives of three professors and critically wounded a 
fourth.
  Thousands of students and faculty members were forced to huddle in 
classrooms behind locked and barricaded doors, waiting for hours to 
find out whether their campus was safe or not.
  Immediately after the shooting, I, and many of my colleagues, 
demanded once again that Congress do something, just anything, to curb 
our Nation's gun violence epidemic.
  Since then, our country has witnessed another 70 school shootings. 
That is in just 6 weeks. How many pieces of legislation to address gun 
violence have been brought to the floor in that time? Zero. It is 
shameful.
  Instead, our far right has played partisan games to score cheap 
political points, threatening a government shutdown, and completely 
dismissing the very real fear that students and educators at UNLV and 
across the country feel each and every day.
  That fear should not be normal. Nevadans are tired of it and so am I. 
I want my colleagues to work together to end this sick cycle of gun 
violence. Let's honor these victims with action.

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