[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17144-17145]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      NEWTOWN, CONNECTICUT TRAGEDY

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rise with a heavy heart at the 
senseless tragedy in Newtown, CT, that took place this Friday. We are 
all shaken from that day, and we ask ourselves: Why? How could this 
happen in America? We grope for answers and I hope we will find them.
  Today I join, first with every American, in expressing our deep and 
abiding grief as a Nation and our deepest, most heartfelt condolences 
to the families of the victims. I am the father of two. As a father of 
two, this strikes painfully close to my heart, and painfully close to 
the heart of every parent. There is no greater sorrow, no deeper pain 
than the enormous grief these families are suffering for those 20 
innocent children, 6 teachers, and school employees and their families; 
and no parent--no parent--should ever have to bear the unspeakable pain 
of losing a child, especially to this type of tragedy.
  All too often I have come to this floor having to say those same 
words--one tragedy after another, time and time again, having to stand 
here and say that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of 
another tragedy involving gun violence, semiautomatic weapons, high-
capacity clips, and the families of those victims who have lost loved 
ones to senseless, sick gun violence.
  But this time we are talking about children--elementary 
schoolchildren--the youngest, most innocent among us taken away. Enough 
is enough.
  Matthew 18 says:

       At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying ``Who is 
     the greatest in the Kingdom

[[Page 17145]]

     of Heaven?'' And calling to him a child, he put him in the 
     midst of them and said, ``Truly, I say to you, unless you 
     turn and become like the children, you will never enter the 
     kingdom of heaven . . . ''

  The children have entered the kingdom of heaven today. I hope we 
honor them and their memory in what we do now to end the violence. Let 
Newton finally be the turning point when we are all willing to come 
together and do what is right. As we pray for the victims, let us 
commit ourselves as a Nation to a long overdue debate about violence 
and guns and how we deal with those who suffer mental illnesses in our 
society, and let us finally pass commonsense gun laws. No more 
politics; no more excuses. We cannot allow this sort of senseless 
violence to continue. We need a national debate about the role of 
firearms in our society, we need to address mental health issues, and 
we need to act immediately.
  This shooter had hundreds of rounds of ammunition--reportedly enough 
to kill everyone in the school--and had it not been for the brave first 
responders, there could have been even more tragic killings on Friday. 
These high-capacity clips must be outlawed. I don't believe there is 
any reason why a law-abiding citizen would need the capability to shoot 
multiple rounds like a street sweeper.
  Words cannot express my sadness that another shooter used a weapon 
that has no legitimate purpose, from my perspective, in a civilized 
society, using high-capacity 30-round clips that defy any reasonable 
use. And there are even greater capacity clips than this.
  I don't understand why the same type of weapon used by the DC sniper 
is still readily available, and I don't understand how we can see the 
same high-capacity clips used over and over by maniacal murderers 
during these strategies and not act.
  After Tucson, Aurora, and now Newtown, we need to finally do 
something about these dangerous clips. We need to make sure nobody with 
a criminal record or mental illness can purchase a firearm, and that 
means we need a comprehensive, mandatory background check system. It is 
no use that my State of New Jersey has some of the toughest laws but 
then over a third of the guns that come into our State and commit an 
act are from outside our State.
  I have cosponsored legislation to outlaw high-capacity clips, improve 
our background checks, and I have supported and helped pass the 
original assault weapons ban, and I will support an assault weapons ban 
this next year as I have in the past.
  This doesn't need to be a political debate. This is about keeping 
little children safe in their first-grade classroom. I am for 
reasonable use of guns, but first and foremost I am for protecting our 
children, our teachers, our families. That is our No. 1 responsibility. 
If we can't do that, shame on us.
  Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Senator from New Jersey for his comments.
  The Presiding Officer and I and others have discussed how we felt 
this weekend. I can't think of anything that has more emotionally 
roiled the Nation. There have been few such events in my lifetime. All 
of us feel the senseless killings last Friday in Newtown, CT, made no 
sense--just hit everybody. If we feel so deeply, we can't begin to 
imagine how the families must feel--the families, the parents of the 
children, the siblings or spouses of the adults killed. We pick up the 
paper, turn on the radio, listen to the television, and there is one 
more wrenching story after another.
  In my family, and I know in families from coast to coast, parents 
called their children. Brothers called sisters. Neighbors reached out 
to neighbors. We huddled with two of our three children, soon to be 
with a third one in Vermont, hugged our grandchildren. Over the weekend 
and again today, in discussions in churches, synagogues, houses of 
worship, on the sidewalk, in the grocery line, at the worksite and in 
our offices, we have all struggled for words to describe our feelings 
of shock and our feelings of immeasurable sadness.
  I think we can all agree no matter what our political background, no 
matter what part of the country we come from, that last night President 
Obama gave voice--our voice, 325 million Americans gave voice to let 
these stricken families know how deeply we wanted to help relieve their 
suffering as we share their grief. It was a time when the President can 
and should and did speak for the whole Nation.
  But there are so many questions about this unspeakable tragedy that 
have yet to be answered. The President has pointed out it is unlikely 
any single step or package of steps or this move or that move can erase 
the chance of such a tragedy happening again. We know it could have 
even been worse if the brave first responders hadn't rushed into the 
school even though they knew they might be facing death themselves. We 
know that sometimes things are beyond our understanding. We know 
situations vary widely from State to State and community to community. 
But whether it is in the State of Connecticut or, God forbid, in the 
State of the Presiding Officer or my State, we all share the 
responsibility of searching for an answer not just for the people of 
Connecticut but for people throughout the United States, and some can 
honestly say the people throughout the world who look to the United 
States as a bastion of freedom, of democracy.
  I think Congress can and should be part of this national discussion 
in the search for answers. We will come back into a new session in a 
few weeks. The Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing very early 
in the next congressional session to help in the search for 
understanding and answers. I know all of us will take part in that no 
matter what our feelings might be.
  There are other committees also that have different types of 
jurisdiction and will have to take part in this national discussion. It 
isn't a matter of just guns--which is a significant part of this, of 
course--it is the matter of mental illness; it is a matter of how we 
run our educational facilities. All of these things should be talked 
about. If there are practical and sensible and workable answers to 
prevent such unspeakable tragedy, we should make the effort to find 
them and then we should have the courage, each and every one of us, to 
vote for those steps.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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