Gun Violence

Floor Speech

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Kelly) for 5 minutes.

Ms. KELLY of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, a gunman walked into a mall in Columbia, Maryland, and opened fire, killing two people before taking his own life. Prior to the mall shooting, we saw six school shootings take place nationwide in just 10 days.

Countless other Americans are terrorized each day on streets that have become shooting galleries where kids aren't safe to walk to school or go to the corner store or sit on their front porches. And yet we do nothing.

Time and time again, despite the headlines and the bloodshed and the pleas from the parents of the victims to act, Congress has failed to pass commonsense gun reforms that would save thousands of American lives, including background checks, which are supported by 90 percent of Americans.

Somehow, in the years between Columbine and Newtown, we have developed a collective indifference to the killings. After each shooting, we are in disbelief; but then we shrug and move on, dismissing the mass shootings as isolated incidents and ignoring the everyday shootings altogether.

Sadly, a callus has formed where our compassion should be. Or is it that the gun lobby's agenda has taken the place of our country's conscience?

I am at a loss because I truly do not understand how we can continue to ignore the public health epidemic that is gun violence in America. What will it take? How many more must die? How many parents must weep before we do the right thing?

Make no mistake, gun violence is robbing us of a generation. It is a slow-motion plague that is killing our kids one day at a time.

In the Chicagoland area, gun violence has claimed some of our best and our brightest, like 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who was shot and killed a year ago this week while standing in a park with friends. You may remember, she was killed a week after performing for President Obama's inauguration.

She was certainly one of my district's shining stars. But she was, by far, not the only one. There were many Hadiyas, young people with promise and potential who were felled by gun violence. They had family and friends who loved them, communities who mourned them, and they are:

Eva Casara, 17; Tyrone Lawson, 17; Maurice Knowles, 16; Darnell Williams, 17; Abdullah Trull, 16; Leonard Anderson, 17; Jaleel Pearson, 18; Malcolm Whitney, 16; Fearro Denard, 18; Tyshon Anderson, 18; Tyrone Hart, 18; Ashaya Miller, 15; Equiel Velasquez, 17; Christopher Lattin, Jr., 15; Rey Donantas, 14; Victor Vegas, 15; Tyrone Lawson, 17; Antonio Fenner, 16; Frances Colon, 18; Jorge Valdez-Benitez, 18; Oscar Marquez, 17; Jonyla Watkins, 6 months; Arrell Monegan, 16; Victor Damian, 15; Clifton Barney, 17; Miguel Delaluz, 17; Leetema Daniels, 17; Fearro Denard, 18; Patrick Sykes, 15; Dionte Maxwell, 18; Miguel Villegas, 15; April McDaniel, 18; Fernando Mondragon, 18; Kevin Rivera, 16; Ricardo Herrera, 17; and Alexander Lagunas, 18.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here in honor of their memories, asking my colleagues to get serious about gun reform and to pass legislation to help them stem the tide of shootings in this country. I hope one day never to have to add another name to that list.

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