[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 154 (Friday, September 19, 2025)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF CHARLES ``CHARLIE'' JAMES KIRK

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. BETTY McCOLLUM

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 18, 2025

  Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I join all my colleagues in this body, my 
constituents, and the American people at large in denouncing all forms 
of political and ideological violence.
  Democracy relies on the core principle of nonviolence.
  We settle our disputes with ballots, not with bullets.
  But as a social studies teacher, I can also recount a dark history of 
times when we lost our way as a Nation, and violence was used to 
silence the voices of debate and sow division.
  The political violence that led up to and followed in the wake of the 
Civil War included a violent assault between Members of Congress and 
the assassination of President Lincoln.
  The assassinations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and 
Robert F. Kennedy--and the shooting of George Wallace--took place 
during a brutal response throughout the Nation to the organized, 
nonviolent Civil Rights Movement.
  This year we have seen a resurgence of horrifically violent attacks 
that have targeted politicians and community leaders on all sides of 
the ideological spectrum.
  My vote for the resolution before us today is a vote to roundly 
condemn these attacks.
  I condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
  I condemn the assassination of Minnesota Representative Melissa 
Hortman and her husband Mark, and the shooting of Senator John Hoffman 
and his wife Yvette.
  I condemn the attack on Governor Josh Shapiro and his family whose 
home was lit on fire while they slept inside.
  I condemn the assassination attempts on President Trump during last 
summer's campaign.
  All of this has happened within little more than a year.
  But since I was elected to office in 2000, I have witnessed a 
building wave of political violence.
  In 2011, my friend and former Representative Gabby Giffords was shot 
at a community event, and one of her staff members and five other 
bystanders were killed.
  In 2017, a shooting at the Republican Congressional baseball team 
practice severely wounded Leader Steve Scalise.
  In 2020, extremist militia members attempted to kidnap Democratic 
Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
  And on January 6, 2021, this institution and its Members--on both 
sides of the aisle--were targeted by violent and antidemocratic 
insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol.
  These attacks against our leaders and institutions do not exist in a 
vacuum.
  America's crisis of political violence comes in the context of a rise 
in hateful rhetoric used against our neighbors and the normalization of 
gun violence in our communities.
  This Congress has failed to act on common sense gun control measures 
that could make us all safer and decrease the likelihood of political 
assassinations, school shootings, and the tragedy of everyday gun 
violence in this Nation.
  I know that we are divided on this issue, as we are on many others. 
But we cannot continue to ignore the danger posed by the proliferation 
of weapons of war in our society. We must come together on solutions to 
protect our communities and de-escalate the violence in our society.
  Today as I vote for this resolution to condemn the assassination of 
Mr. Kirk, I must express how disappointed I am that we still have not 
brought to the House Floor, the resolution that honors the victims and 
survivors of the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School that 
took place three weeks ago.
  I equally condemn that violence, which took the lives of two children 
as they sat in church pews that day celebrating the start of a new 
school year.
  If there is a Biblical truth that we seek to be inspired by today, 
let it be the principle of nonviolence espoused by Christ and embodied 
in Saint Paul's letter to the Romans: Do not be overcome by evil, but 
overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21) Let us then pursue what leads 
to peace and to building up one another. (Romans 14:19)

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