Guns

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I want to share the words of Geneva Cunningham. She is 15 years old. She is a ninth grader from the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, Connecticut.

Geneva witnessed the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre when she was only in the fourth grade. Geneva's father gave me her poem in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, though Geneva wrote it just a few days before the shooting occurred. This is what she wrote: Pure; A mother called her child Kissing his forehead On his way to school. For the boy It was a normal day Until the darkness came And swept the light away. We did not ask for this. We did not ask to hear gunshots In slamming doors and dropping books. We did not ask To witness the murders Of the children We played with at recess. We did not know That our teacher Had taught us our final lesson. And we believed her When she said The red spilling from her foot Was only paint. Sweet ignorance The honey in our poisoned tea The salt we mistook for sugar. But where do we draw the line? Between knowledge and ignorance When do we know to cover our eyes When the darkness Begins to swallow us whole. We united this country By stating ``We are one.'' And on that principle Our Forefathers said You may ``bear arms'' to fight against them. You may defend Against them. But who is this ``them''? If we are one Who are we fighting against? If we are one Then who are we defending? If we are taking lives to begin with Because killing is still killing. The number of lives lost Is no victory On our own soil Or on any soil. We say we are equals. So who gets the power To decide Who lives and who dies? Because by giving open access to these weapons We are giving power To trembling hands. And these hands Were the ones to take the life of the little boy The day he was learning How to read. These machines were not designed for play. They were designed to kill. If we use them on the battlefield If they can take a life Then they are not worth it. Because I promise you A life is worth more Than any machine Used for fun. Yet we bear these weapons. We claim that we enjoy The crack At the end of the rifle. Yeah, it may seem fun On the other side. But what if You are on the opposite end? Begging Pleading Crying out For your life. For the lives of your friends For the lives of your classmates For the life of your teacher. We must be sure Whose fingers we can trust On the trigger Because that choice May determine Your life The lives of your friends The lives of your family And the lives of those you love.

Mr. Speaker, this is the voice of a child who has witnessed murder. How have we allowed this to become normal in America?

Geneva's poem is beautiful, and she never should have had to write it. But this is the world that we live in: a world where NRA dollars drive decisions, sales for bulletproof backpacks are soaring, and 14- year-olds have seen their teachers and their friends die at school.

We must ban assault weapons. They have no place in our society. And we must ban high-capacity magazines. We need to hold gun manufacturers accountable for crimes committed with their guns and end the de facto ban on gun research. These are commonsense reforms.

As Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Emma Gonzalez said so pointedly: ``We are going to be the kids you read about in textbooks, not because we are going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, but because . . . we are going to be the last mass shooting.''

I pray that she is right. But it is Congress that needs to provide more than thoughts and prayers for a change. We must take action. That is our moral responsibility.

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