[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 139 (Monday, September 9, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5894-S5895]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       APALACHEE SCHOOL SHOOTING

  Mr. WARNOCK. Mr. President, I rise today carrying the grief of all 
Georgians after a school shooting in the small town of Winder, GA, 
claimed the lives of two children and two educators just 5 days ago.
  I have been in the U.S. Senate a little over 3 years, and I have 
stood here three times to lament yet another tragic mass shooting in my 
State alone that has taken innocent lives. That is as unsurprising as 
it is tragic since we endure, in this country, about two mass shootings 
a day.
  So here we are again. I stand here not just as a Senator but as a 
father of two young children. I can tell you that as a dad, that time 
in the morning when you get your kids ready for school and you put them 
in the car and you drive them to school--that is precious time. All of 
us parents, when we drop our kids off--we drive them to school or walk 
them to school or walk them to the schoolbus--we want to know that we 
are going to pick them up just a few hours later. It is a ritual played 
out in small towns and big cities all across America, and it is 
something we take for granted. But increasingly in the United States of 
America, we cannot take for granted that when we drop our kids off in 
the morning, we will pick them up at 3 o'clock. That is every parents' 
nightmare regardless of your politics.
  Only weeks into the new school year, this nightmare again became a 
reality in Georgia. With four dead, others injured, and an entire 
community traumatized, Apalachee High School joins a grim and growing 
procession of schools where our children are dying from gun violence.
  We cannot easily pass this over. We must never forget their names: 
two dedicated educators, Cristina Irimie and Richard--or Coach Ricky, 
as he was called--Aspinwall, and then two young students, Mason 
Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo.
  On Friday night, this past Friday night, I went to Winder to join 
Apalachee students, families, and community members as they came 
together to mourn these precious souls. It was a Friday night in 
smalltown Georgia. The truth is, we should have been there for a 
football game--how I remember those nights as a high school student--
but instead of cheering on their classmates, they were mourning their 
classmates.
  One student came up to me with pain in her eyes, and she said, ``I 
don't want to go back to school.'' Then there were these girls, these 
15-year-old girls, who surrounded me, because I spent some time there, 
and they began to talk to me. One of them talked about hearing the 
noise of someone banging on the door, of huddling and wondering what 
would come next.
  Coach Ricky, who was beloved, was also a math teacher, and one of the 
girls said: This was my math teacher. Imagine that. You go to school 
one day, and the biggest thing you are concerned about is understanding 
the math problem, and you come to school the next day, the next week, 
and your math teacher is dead--another victim of a mass shooting in 
your school.
  I remember talking also to the family of Christian, and the father 
shared with me that they had moved from California to a small town in 
Georgia looking for a quiet and peaceful life. Sad irony. Tragic irony.
  One of my colleagues suggested over the weekend--one of my Senate 
colleagues--that this kind of violence is a fact of life. That is what 
he said. He said it is a fact of life.
  No. This is a fact of life in America. In no other country that is 
not at war is this kind of random violence routine. This is a tragic 
form of American exceptionalism.
  As we wrestle with this trauma, I think we are all called as a 
country to ask ourselves, what trauma do we visit upon our children if 
we say that the only thing we can do for you in the midst of all of 
this is to teach you how to hide?
  That same colleague, by the way, suggested that what we ought to do 
is harden the schools because these are soft targets. Well, apply that 
logic. So are we going to harden every school in America, harden every 
grocery store in America? What about shopping malls? What about spas? 
What about the medical clinics? What about the houses of worship? Is 
that the answer? Are we going to turn the whole country into a fort 
just so 14-year-olds can have AR-15s? So I know that we may not all 
agree on what to do, but surely we can do better than that. We don't 
have to live this way. We don't have to accept this as a fact of life.
  So in the midst of all of this, we hear often the words, you know, 
``We are sending our thoughts and our prayers.'' Let me say as a man of 
faith that to say that you are praying while refusing to act is to make 
a mockery of faith. We must pray with our lips, and we must pray by 
taking action.
  I do not believe that mass shootings as routine are the cost of 
freedom; I believe that they are the cost of blind obstinance. They are 
the cost of greed.
  So we must start and see through a serious, bipartisan conversation 
right here in Washington and in State capitals all over this country 
about how to better protect our children and communities across the 
country from the scourge of gun violence.
  I was proud that a few years ago, just a couple years ago, we did 
make progress right here in this Chamber, and we passed commonsense gun 
safety reforms in the wake of yet another tragic school shooting. While 
that bill was modest, it was meaningful. We made progress. Right now, 
that law is saving lives but, as we were reminded just a few days ago, 
not enough. So there is still work for us to do.
  For me, this is not a political issue; it is a moral issue. The 
glimmer of hope is that most American families feel the same way. 
According to a FOX News poll, about 87 percent of Americans believe 
that Congress ought to pass universal background checks. That is 
Democrats and Republicans--87 percent agreement. Still we can't have a 
serious conversation about that here in this Chamber. Why? Because 
politicians have put their own political ambitions--their own fears in 
some cases--ahead of the people we were sent here to represent. It is 
just another sign of the growing chasm between what the people want and 
what they can get out of their government. In that sense, it is a 
democracy problem.
  So we have to save the American people from this carnage, and we have 
to redeem the democracy. We must do more, and I believe in our ability 
to do more because I believe in the American people. The American 
people are calling for change--Democrats and Republicans, folks in 
rural spaces and in urban spaces. It is the gun lobby that wants to 
turn this into a culture war because they know that is in their best 
interest.
  This is a public safety issue, and the American people are calling 
out for action, they are calling for sanity, and I believe it is high 
time that we do that work.

[[Page S5895]]

  As I close, I just want to thank our law enforcement officers. I want 
to thank our first responders and our healthcare workers. May we thank 
our educators, our teachers, our coaches. May we remember the people of 
Winder and Apalachee High School and small towns all across our 
country. They all stood up the other day, shining bright in a dark 
moment. I pray for the day when I will be able to say the same thing 
about the U.S. Congress. It is past time.
  As dark as this moment is, may we be encouraged by the words of 
Scripture:

       The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not 
     overcome it.

  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________