[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16997]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it has been more than a year since the 
Columbine tragedy, but still this Republican Congress refuses to act on 
sensible gun legislation.
  Since Columbine, thousands of Americans have been killed by gunfire. 
Until we act, Democrats in the Senate will read some of the names of 
those who lost their lives to gun violence in the past year, and we 
will continue to do so every day that the Senate is in session.
  In the name of those who died, we will continue this fight. Following 
are the names of some of the people who were killed by gunfire one year 
ago today.
  September 5, 1999:
  Andre P. Bacon, 21, Chicago, IL;
  Agron Berisha, 18, Miami, FL;
  Mark Douglas, 34, Fort Wayne, IN;
  Princeton L. Douglas, 18, Chicago, IL;
  Willie Lassiter, 20, Atlanta, GA;
  Denkyira McElroy, 24, Chicago, IL;
  Jerry Ojeda, 23, Houston, TX;
  Rodney Prince, 18, Baltimore, MD;
  Jarhonda Snow, 4, Miami, FL;
  Unidentified Female, San Francisco, CA.
  One of the gun violence victims I mentioned, 23-year-old Jerry Ojeda 
from Houston, was drinking with friends when they began taking turns 
shooting a 9-millimeter pistol into the air. After firing several 
shots, Jerry took the gun and turned it on himself.
  We cannot sit back and allow such senseless gun violence to continue. 
The deaths of these people are a reminder to all of us that we need to 
enact sensible gun legislation now.

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