[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 212 (Tuesday, December 16, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H5904]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 ENACTING REAL CHANGE FOR GUN VIOLENCE

  (Mr. Kennedy of New York was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. KENNEDY of New York. Mr. Speaker, at this moment two families of 
Brown University students and 15 families in Sydney, Australia, are 
experiencing an anguish and heartbreak that is immeasurable, yet far 
too familiar.
  Once again, we have seen hatred rear its ugly head in the form of gun 
violence, this time with 2 students murdered and 9 more injured at 
Brown, and 15 murdered and dozens injured in Sydney.
  This comes on the heels of the 13th anniversary of the Sandy Hook 
shooting that took 26 victims, including 20 children.

                              {time}  1030

  Last year, those 20 beautiful children who were violently taken from 
their families should have been graduating from high school. This year, 
they should have been coming home for the December break, seeing their 
childhood friends, and telling their parents about all that they 
learned and experienced in college. Those are experiences that their 
families have been robbed of.
  We, as a society, have been robbed of all that they may have 
accomplished throughout their lives: families that will never be 
formed, careers that will never be, memories that will never happen. 
The families of the victims of those two horrific shootings will 
experience that same agony year after year and decade after decade.
  My own community of Buffalo knows it all too well. On May 14, 2022, a 
racist, white supremacist, terrorist gunman drove nearly 3 hours to our 
community, the City of Good Neighbors, and opened fire at the only 
full-service grocery store in a prominently Black neighborhood.
  Mr. Speaker, 10 lives were callously and heartlessly stolen from us 
with three more, including the son of a dear friend of mine, critically 
injured. Our city will never be the same again.
  It doesn't have to be this way. We can choose another path.
  In New York State, we did just that. We ensured that military-grade 
body armor stays only in the hands of law enforcement and our Armed 
Forces. We implemented enhanced red flag laws and universal background 
checks. We raised the age to own firearms from 18 to 21, and we banned 
assault rifles.
  We know these laws work in New York, and we know they work everywhere 
else, but they are severely weakened by the flow of guns across State 
borders due to the lack of Federal regulation.
  In the United States, for far too long, some have treated gun 
violence as a part of life. My Democratic colleagues and I reject that. 
We refuse to accept a reality in which our schools, our houses of 
worship, our movie theaters, our grocery stores, our government 
offices, our workplaces, our parades, our malls, and our nightclubs are 
treated as if they haven't been the scenes of horrific, deadly attacks.
  The time for action is now. I implore this body to join me in 
supporting the assault weapons ban; universal background checks; 
stronger red flag laws; ending gun trafficking across State lines; and, 
among others, my bill, the Lieutenant Aaron Salter, Jr., Responsible 
Body Armor Possession Act.
  I beg my colleagues not to accept the status quo and to fight for a 
safer Nation. We can and should do so much better for our children and 
future generations.
  I pray for the lives of those who were lost this past weekend. I pray 
that our country sees the light and enacts real, substantive change 
that will end the scourge of gun violence across our Nation.

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