[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 14]
[Senate]
[Pages 20009-20011]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF SANDY HOOK TRAGEDY

  Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, next week we will mark the 3-year 
anniversary, for lack of a better word, of the massacre at Sandy Hook, 
CT. Senator Blumenthal will be joining me on the floor momentarily. I 
wanted to come to the floor to speak to our colleagues for a few 
moments about what this week will mean to us in Connecticut and the 
challenge it presents to all of us.
  I want to open by speaking about one of the young men who perished 
that day--a little first grader by the name of Daniel Barden. Daniel 
was a really, really special kid. I talk about him a lot when I am 
speaking on Sandy Hook because I have gotten to know his parents pretty 
well over the years, so I feel like I know Daniel pretty well. Now that 
I have a little 7-year-old first grader at home, too, I, frankly, feel 
closer than ever before to the families such as the Bardens who are 
still grieving.
  Daniel had this sense of uncanny empathy that, now as a father of a 
7-year-old, I know is, frankly, not normally visited upon children that 
age. Daniel just loved helping people in big and small ways; he was so 
preternaturally outward in his sympathy for others.
  There is a story his dad likes to tell about the challenge of going 
to the supermarket with Daniel because when they would leave, Daniel 
always liked to hold the door open for his family. But then he wouldn't 
stop holding the door open because he wanted to hold it open for all of 
the rest of the people who were leaving the grocery store. So the 
family would get all the way to the car, and they would look back and 
they wouldn't have Daniel because he was still holding the door open. 
It was small things like that that made him such a special kid.
  His father, Mark, wrote one day: ``I'm always one minute farther away 
from my life with Daniel, and that gulf keeps getting bigger.'' His 
mother, Jackie, in the months and years following Daniel's death, 
developed a habit of what grief counselors call defensive mechanisms. 
She would sometimes pretend that Daniel was at a friend's house for a 
couple hours, simply in order to give herself the strength to do simple 
household chores like cooking dinner or returning emails. The only way 
she could do it is if she pretended for a small slice of time that 
Daniel was actually still alive.
  It is hard to describe for my colleagues here today the grief that 
still, frankly, drowns Sandy Hook parents and the community at large. 
It is total, it is permanent, and it is all-consuming. But for many of 
those parents and many of those community members, the grief now is 
mixed with a combination of anger and utter bewilderment, all of it 
directed at us, in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.
  On December 14, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School 
armed with a weapon that was designed for the military--designed to 
kill as many people as quickly as possible. He had 30-round magazines, 
not designed for hunting or for sport shooting but to destroy as much 
life as quickly as possible. Importantly, he left at home his lower 
round magazines. And the design of his weapons worked--to a tee. In 
approximately 4 minutes, he discharged 154 rounds, and he killed with 
ruthless efficiency: 27 people shot, 26 dead, including 20 first 
graders.
  Here are their names: Rachel D'Avino, 29; Dawn Hochsprung, 47; Anne 
Marie Murphy, 52; Lauren Rousseau, 30; Mary Sherlach, 56; Victoria 
Leigh Soto, 27.
  And the students: Charlotte Bacon, Daniel Barden, Olivia Engel, 
Josephine Gay, Dylan Hockley, Madeleine Hsu, Catherine Hubbard, Chase 
Kowalski, Jesse Lewis, Ana Marquez-Greene, James Mattioli, Grace 
McDonnell, Emilie Parker, Jack Pinto.
  It keeps going: Noah Pozner, Caroline Previdi, Jessica Rekos, Avielle 
Richman, Benjamin Wheeler, and Allison Wyatt.
  There are a handful of kids who aren't on that list, because there 
were children in Victoria Soto's classroom who were able to escape, 
likely--as investigators believe--when Adam Lanza had to reload his 
weapon to put another 30 bullets in it.
  So 3 years later, as we grieve those 26, we are still having these 
awful, searing questions to ponder: What would have happened if Lanza 
didn't have an assault rifle? Would he even have had the perverse 
courage to walk into that school if not aided by the security of having 
a high powered killing machine? Would less kids have died? What if his 
cartridges had six or 10 bullets instead of 30? Would more kids be 
alive if someone had been able to stop him while he fumbled with 
another reload?
  The facts of Sandy Hook are hard to hear over and over, but they are 
important because they should have educated us on ways that we could 
come together to make another mass shooting less likely. But we ignored 
Sandy Hook, and it happened again and again. This year, there have been 
more mass shootings than there have been days in the year: 9 in 
Charleston, 5 in Chattanooga, 9 again in Roseburg, 14 in San 
Bernardino.
  As I sat at that firehouse with Senator Blumenthal that afternoon in 
Sandy Hook, as the news rolled into those parents that the children 
they

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loved wouldn't be coming home, if someone had told me that day that we 
would do nothing--that our response as a Congress and as a country 
would be utter silence--I wouldn't have believed it--no way. But if 
somebody then told me that it would happen again and again and again 
and we still wouldn't do anything, I would have collapsed in disbelief.
  I am going to tell my colleagues, that is how the families feel. 
Whatever we think is the best way to stop this carnage--changing our 
gun laws, giving more resources to law enforcement, changing our mental 
health system to get more help to those who are becoming unhinged and 
thinking about settling their real or imagined grievances with 
violence--do something to honor those children and adults. Do something 
to show there is an ounce of compassion as we sit here 3 years after 
the bloody massacre at Sandy Hook.
  Our mental health system is broken. We have closed down 4,000 
inpatient beds since the recession began. It is harder than ever for 
families to get the help they need. If you read the report on Adam 
Lanza, you will see a very troubled young man who was utterly failed by 
the behavioral health system that stood around him.
  Stronger gun laws do work. They absolutely would have prevented some 
of those kids from dying. And the data is irrefutable. This mythology 
that you are safer with more guns has zero basis in fact. The data 
tells us that in States that have tougher gun laws, they have less gun 
deaths. In States that have higher rates of gun ownership, they have 
more gun deaths. Stronger gun laws work.
  To be honest, the burden is not just on us; it is also on the 
administration. I have called, along with many of my colleagues, on the 
administration to take some steps, if Congress won't, to make sure that 
those who are truly gun dealers, though they might not have a brick-
and-mortar store--those who are selling guns with frequency at places 
such as gun shows or on the Internet--have to do background checks, a 
recognition that they are dealers just like people who have stores in 
your downtown.
  So my plea, 3 years after this tragedy that utterly transformed that 
community, is for us to recognize that there is no other country in the 
world that would live with this level of slaughter. There is no other 
nation in the world that would accept 80 people dying every day from 
preventible gun violence and mass shooting after mass shooting and not 
even try to fix it. That is what is so offensive to me, and 3 years 
later that is what is so hard to understand for the families whom we 
represent in Sandy Hook, CT.
  If you don't want to believe me, I am going to close the exact same 
way I closed 2 years ago on the 1-year anniversary. I am kind of 
ashamed that I have to read this letter again because every single word 
of it still applies 2 years later, when the epidemic of mass shootings 
in this country hasn't abated but simply grown. It is from a mom whose 
child survived, and I will close with it.

       In addition to the tragic loss of her playmates, friends, 
     and teachers, my first grader suffers from PTSD. She was in 
     the first room by the entrance to the school. Her teacher was 
     able to gather the children into a tiny bathroom inside the 
     classroom. There she stood, with 14 of her classmates and her 
     teacher, all of them crying. You see, she heard what was 
     happening on the other side of the wall. She heard 
     everything. She was sure she was going to die that day and 
     did not want to die for Christmas. Imagine what this must 
     have been like. She struggles nightly with nightmares, 
     difficulty falling asleep, and being afraid to go anywhere in 
     her own home. At school she becomes withdrawn, crying daily, 
     covering her ears when it gets too loud and waiting for this 
     to happen again. She is 6.
       And we are furious.
       Furious that 26 families must suffer with grief so deep and 
     so wide that it is unimaginable.
       Furious that the innocence and safety of my children's 
     lives has been taken.
       Furious that someone had access to the type of weapon used 
     in this massacre.
       Furious that gun makers make ammunition with such high 
     rounds and our government does nothing to stop them.
       Furious that the ban on assault weapons was carelessly left 
     to expire.
       Furious that lawmakers let the gun lobbyists have so much 
     control.
       Furious that somehow, someone's right to own a gun is more 
     important than my children's rights to life.
       Furious that lawmakers are too scared to take a stand.

  She writes:

       I ask you to think about your choices. Look at the pictures 
     of the 26 innocent lives taken so needlessly and wastefully, 
     using a weapon that never should have been in the hands of 
     civilians. Really think. Changing the laws may 
     ``inconvenience'' some gun owners, but it may also save a 
     life, perhaps a life that is dear to me or you. Are you 
     really willing to risk it? You--

  Speaking to us--

     have a responsibility and obligation to act now and change 
     the laws.
       I hope and I pray that you do not fail.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Madam President.
  I am honored to follow my colleague and friend Senator Murphy in an 
effort that has involved both of us, our minds and our hearts, from the 
day we stood together on December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Sandy Hook. We 
have stood together and worked together with the families and community 
that so inspired us with their strength and courage.
  If I have one overriding image and message in my mind and heart, it 
is those families most directly affected by the deaths of 20 beautiful 
children and sixth grade educators, the families in the reverberating 
circle of people so deeply touched, hurt, and harmed by the evil on 
that day, and the people who exemplified the good of that day, the 
first responders, the firefighters and police, who saw things no human 
being should ever have to witness and emerged also deeply hurt and 
harmed. The courage and strength of Newtown, that community, and the 
families will always inspire me.
  I have worked on gun violence prevention for many years, a couple of 
decades before December 14, 2012. I was the attorney general of the 
State of Connecticut and a State legislator advocating for the assault 
weapon ban and other gun violence prevention measures. Then, as 
attorney general, I defended the assault weapon ban when it was 
challenged in court, tried the case, and we successfully argued it in 
the State supreme court. So I knew intellectually and abstractly why we 
need in this Nation and in Connecticut stronger measures to stop gun 
violence. The experience of that day left a searing mark on my heart 
and on my conscience, so it became for me the passion and priority it 
is today, and I will not rest as a Member of this body and as a human 
being until this Nation does better to make America safer and to 
prevent the kind of tragedy we saw on that day.
  I will never forget being at that firehouse on that afternoon, but I 
will also never forget that evening at St. Rose of Lima Church when the 
community came together to light a candle rather than curse the 
darkness.
  I had a conversation with one of the parents who lost a child. It was 
either that night or in the grief-filled days thereafter, when I said 
to her at some point: When you are ready, I would like to talk to you 
about what we can do about this. She said to me: I am ready now.
  That is the courage we have seen in the last 3 years from those 
families. It is the courage we saw this morning at an event in the 
Capitol. It is the courage we have seen again and again from Newtown, 
from all over the country, loved ones and victims of all of the 
places--they become kind of landmarks that we recite. There are 30,000 
deaths every year from places whose names we could never recite here 
because it would be too long and because they are the mundane places 
that all of us go.
  As my colleague Senator Murphy said this morning, all of us are just 
one second away from becoming victims. The fact is we are all touched 
by gun violence and we are all harmed and hurt by it.
  I will never forget that evening. I will never forget also the day on 
the floor of this House when the Senate failed to approve a commonsense 
package of gun violence prevention measures, universal background 
checks,

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banning illegal trafficking, a ban on assault weapons, the mental 
health initiative, and from the Gallery someone shouted down: Shame. 
They may have said: Shame on you. There is no record of it because we 
record only what happens on the floor, but on that day the most 
profound and eloquent comment was those three words: ``Shame on you.''
  Shame on us in the U.S. Senate. We are complicit by our inaction. 
Congress is complicit by its silence. Moments of silence have their 
place, but silence by inaction here is complicity. It is not only the 
failure to act, it is also the obstruction that has been placed in the 
way of knowledge and research. The so-called rider--nobody outside the 
U.S. Capitol would talk about riders, an amendment that stops the 
government from doing research--literally research, fact gathering, 
investigation on gun violence. The cause of 30,000 deaths every year in 
this country cannot be researched by the Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention.
  In fact, we face a public health crisis in this country. If it were 
Ebola or influenza or polio, facing these kinds of epidemics or feared 
epidemics in this country, we would react with drastic and effective 
measures, including quarantine, that would mobilize this Nation. The 
response of the Congress to the epidemic of gun violence is to bar 
research by the CDC and other public health authorities. The very same 
public health community that could help us understand and take action 
is gagged and straitjacketed by the U.S. Congress. Even the initial 
author of that amendment restricting research, former Congressman Jay 
Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, said he has regrets. ``I wish we 
had started the proper research and kept it going all the time,'' he 
said.
  The Congress owes the American people more, but this promise I can 
make. We are not going away. We are not abandoning this effort. We will 
not be silenced. We will not be inactive. We are not giving up.
  Twelve years it took to pass the Brady bill, after the President of 
the United States was almost assassinated just a few miles from here 
and his Press Secretary, Jim Brady, was paralyzed. It took 12 years to 
pass, with the support of President Reagan, and we need to be prepared 
for that kind of marathon.
  President Reagan famously said: ``Facts are stubborn things.'' We 
cannot deny the facts that drive this debate because laws do work. We 
come here every day with the presumption that what we do makes a 
difference, that the laws we pass make a difference. Gun violence 
prevention laws do work.
  When the shooter at Sandy Hook had to change magazines, children 
succeeded in escaping. If he had been barred from having the assault 
weapon, had it been banned, unable to bring it to the site of that 
horrific tragedy, it might have made a difference.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for just 1 
minute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. If the shooter in Charleston had been barred, as he 
should have been because he was ineligible, rather than having the 
opportunity to purchase weapons as a result of the 72-hour rule 
loophole, it might have made a difference there. We can't say for 
certain.
  We know there is no panacea, no magic solution, but the loved ones of 
the families of Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Colorado Springs, Roseburg, 
Roanoke, Charleston, and Lafayette have to make a difference here. 
Honor them with action is what we should do; inaction is complicity. We 
owe the American people better. We need to keep faith with its values 
and keep faith with America.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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