Sharing Students' `March for Our Lives' Remarks

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on May 9, I came to the Floor and spoke about the March For Our Lives on March 24 and the nine extraordinarily poised students in Morristown, New Jersey, who spoke at the rally there, which I attended. I include in the Record remarks by Isabella Bosrock. I hope my colleagues will read them and internalize the sense of fear in which our nation's students are living every day--and our responsibility as Members of Congress to do something to address this crisis of gun violence. March for our Lives Remarks (By Isabella Bosrock)

My name is Isabella Bosrock, and I am a senior at West Morris Mendham High School. Today you will be hearing from seven incredible high school students from across the district who are here today to say `enough is enough' and `never again' to senseless gun violence. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment and thank Mr. Steny Hoyer, a U.S. Representative for Maryland's Fifth Congressional District and the Minority Whip of the House for being here today.

On March 20, a mere four days ago, a seventeen year old boy named Austin Wyatt Rollins walked into Great Mills High School with his dad's hand gun and shot two students, one of which was an ex-girlfriend. Reports say he did this because of a recent break up with the girl he shot. The student resource officer on duty, Blaine Gaskill managed with great bravely to shoot and kill the gunman, avoiding the loss of many more lives.

While this event is incredibly upsetting it is not unlike many things that have happened in the country is the years since Columbine. It is horrible that as adolescents we have become used to the idea that gun violence is a method of dealing with our problems. This pattern of gun violence has been perpetuated by adult lawmakers who refuse to do anything about the bloodshed in their schools.

I bring this up today because Mr. Hoyer is the representative of the district where Great Mills High School is located, yet he is still here at our march today. Let's all thank him for being here today. I also bring this up because I think that it is so important that we make sure we acknowledge every instance of senseless gun violence that occurs within this country. While Parkland was able to get mass media attention, hashtags on social media and `thoughts and prayers' from everyone around the world, there are so many acts of violence that occur in the U.S. every single day that go completely unnoticed.

Often times we give them attention for a couple of days, maybe a week, then we forget, and other times we fail to acknowledge them at all. In fact there have been eighteen instances of a gun firing at schools in the U.S. since the beginning of 2018, which averages out to about three per week.

This cannot be our reality. However many people do not know this because they never gain the same attention as events like Parkland. These other shootings often resulted in no bloodshed or a few injured. But this doesn't mean that they are any less catastrophic because every single life of those students will be forever changed. Each and every day they walk into the school that almost cost them their lives, and they are forced to face their worst fears. The lives of the students in the eighteen schools will never ever be the same. It is so easy for us to watch these catastrophic events unravel on the news for a week, donate money to the cause, post a hashtag on social media, then move on with our lives. But it is so important in our crazy, ever changing lives to never forget.

We have to make sure that we not only remember to hold the lives of those lost in our hearts, but to make sure that we are holding the people who are accountable, responsible for the lives of innocent people murdered.

It is up to us to change the future, but these changes will only come by reflecting on the past and acknowledging what happened. Forgetting will not do anything but make us complacent and allow more of these massacres to happen.

That being said, I encourage every single one of you today to go out and read about the other school shootings that you may have missed and hold those victims in your memory so that we can use those losses to fuel the fire of change.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source