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Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, Jimmy Greene and his wife Nelba lost a daughter in Sandy Hook. Jimmy said this, leading up to the 10-year mark of the shooting in Newtown that we are commemorating today:

There is a saying in our culture that ``time heals all wounds,'' but I wouldn't say that is true in my case.

Senator Blumenthal and I have been down here on December 14 for 9 years in a row. Senator Blumenthal and I have given hundreds of speeches on this floor in the intervening days and months, in between those anniversaries, talking about what happened in Sandy Hook and trying to compel our colleagues to action. But there is nothing that we can say that explains through words the feeling of cataclysmic loss when you lose a child--a 6-year-old or a 7-year-old or an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old.

Senator Blumenthal and I were there at the firehouse in Sandy Hook that day. There are a lot of days when I wish I hadn't heard and seen the things that I saw and heard that day. But we were voyeurs. We were interlopers. There is no way that we can understand what those families are going through today, as the pain still feels, for many, as acute as it did 10 years ago.

So Senator Blumenthal and I think it is important to come down here and honor the memory of those children and those six educators every year on December 14. But I also know that there is nothing that I can do with words to explain to you how different the community of Sandy Hook is and how those lives will never, ever be the same.

I guess I come to this day every year with two emotions. One is of just deep sorrow, just to think about who those kids were going to become. Senator Blumenthal and I have gotten to learn so much about these kids. I know more about those 20 6-year-old kids than I probably know about any other set of 6-year-old kids other than my own when they were that age over the course of my lifetime, and I love those kids. I see the genius in them. They were already doing such miraculous things, showing such kindness and such talent. And to think that those kids today would be preparing for college, deciding where they wanted to open up their next chapter, to think of what has been stolen from this world.

My sorrow is also due to the fact that, well, this Nation is different today than it was before Sandy Hook. The country now compels us to action. There are groups all over the country dedicated to trying to change the laws of this country to make a Sandy Hook less likely.

This was all happening before Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook was the first shooting of little kids in a school of this size. But a few weeks after Sandy Hook happened, Senator Blumenthal and I went to do a community meeting in the north end of Hartford, and there we met parents of children who had been killed on the streets of Hartford who were furious, and even more furious after Sandy Hook. They told us: Nobody can relate to those families in Sandy Hook more than we can. We lost children just like they lost children, but why did this country wait until Sandy Hook to open their eyes to the epidemic of gun violence that exists every single day, whether or not it hits the headlines?

So my sorrow today is for what we lost 10 years ago today, for the genius and the talent that was extinguished from this Earth--those kids and those educators, those teachers. But also my sorrow today is for the fact that it took Sandy Hook to wake this country up to what had been happening in front of us every single day.

And to really understand the gravity of Sandy Hook, you can't just think about those kids. That is the worst part of this, by leaps and bounds. But there are survivors. There are children who witnessed those shootings. There are family members who experienced deep trauma. There are first responders who will never be the same after having to sort through that carnage.

Sandy Hook is a window into the particular grief that comes with losing someone to gun violence, especially someone young, but also the broad sweeping trauma that comes with a shooting of 20 or 1.

That is the important thing to understand today, as well--that our love needs to go to those families, first and foremost, but also to the community of Newtown. But so must it go to the broader experience of gun violence.

I live in Hartford, CT. I live in the South End of Hartford, a neighborhood adjacent to the South End of Hartford. I hear every night the sirens and police cars and ambulances whizzing by my house. I went to a middle school--actually, to a K-8 school. I met with middle schoolers at this school just down the street from my home a few weeks ago, just to kind of talk to these kids about what they wanted to change about the neighborhood we live in.

Do you know what they wanted to talk to me about? They wanted to talk to me about their walk to and from school. They wanted to talk to me about how dangerous it is for them to walk from their house to the school that they go to and how every single day they are experiencing a trauma that many people who grow up in the suburbs or rural areas of this country will never experience once in their life. But these kids experience it every single day.

That is the true story of American gun violence, not just those who lose their lives but this much bigger universe of millions of individuals who experienced trauma either through the loss, through the firsthand experience of gun violence, or through the daily threat of gun violence.

And so my pain is for what we lost that day. My pain is for the delayed reaction of this country in waking up to this epidemic. My pain is for the broader community of kids and individuals who have to live with the consequences of our inaction.

But I just simply want to underscore something Senator Blumenthal said as well. I also come to this day with a lot of joy, a lot of joy for what we have found that lies inside each of us. Out of Sandy Hook came kindness and grace. Senator Blumenthal rattled off a list of not- for-profit organizations, charitable causes that have sprung forth from those families in Sandy Hook; the amount of money that has been raised to try to make people's lives better in big ways and small ways. I come to this day with a lot of gratitude for the community of Sandy Hook for deciding to take that awful tragedy and turning it into something wonderful.

There are small, little charities that started out of Sandy Hook based upon the passions of those kids--kids who loved art or who loved animals. There are now charitable organizations that give more kids-- especially more underserved kids--access to art and experience with animals. There are big organizations that are seeking to change the culture of schools to make sure that you don't have situations in which individuals who are going through mental illness or trauma find themselves isolated and ostracized in the way that many mass shooters become.

So there is so much important work that is happening based off of that loss. I have joy for that. I do. I do.

I also have gratitude for all the people who have stepped up and have been part of this movement to change the laws of this country.

I get it that people didn't see results here for 10 years until this summer. But Senator Blumenthal and I and others, and Senator Durbin, who have been working on this issue for a decade, we saw that small but meaningful progress every single year. Every single year, a couple more partners, especially on the Republican side, were willing to talk to us about change.

All of a sudden, it became a little bit more likely that we would finally pass something. Then, finally, this summer, almost 10 years to the day of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, we passed the most significant anti-gun violence measure in Congress in 30 years.

I got a briefing from the Department of Justice, as did Senator Tillis and Senator Cornyn, just a few weeks ago, and we were shown evidence that this law that we passed collectively was already saving lives. We were given cases in which individuals who would have gotten a gun, who were in crisis, who were contemplating violence did not get a gun because of the law that we passed together. What we have done isn't enough, and it doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to do more, but it is saving lives.

This day, for me, comes with gratitude and joy for all of the people all across this country, especially those people in Newtown who decided to be part of this movement which allowed us to pass legislation this summer, which is, as we speak, saving lives all around this country.

My sorrow and my joy that I bring to this day, you know, is through my perspective as the Representative of Newtown. I was the Congressman for Newtown for 6 years. I had just been elected to the Senate about a month prior when Sandy Hook happened.

It is also due to my perspective as a parent. My kids are amongst this generation that has grown up knowing nothing except for the threat of a mass shooting. I will never forget my kindergartner, who is now a fifth grader, coming home and telling me about his first active shooter drill. He didn't exactly know what it was, right? He was 5 years old.

He said: Dad, my teacher told us all to go to the bathroom today--all of us, all 26 of us. She packed us into the bathroom.

He described the fact that they were standing in the bathroom, all tight together like sardines, and he said: She told us we were practicing for what would happen if a bad man came into our building, and she told us to stay there and be quiet for as long as we could.

He didn't really know what it was, but he knew enough to say to me this: Daddy, I didn't like it.

My older son texted a few weeks ago to tell us that his school was in a lockdown because of a shooting outside. For 2 hours, those kids sat in that school until they were released. I mean, my kids, I think, are proud of the fact that their dad comes to work every day and tries to solve this epidemic, but there is no way to really calculate what this generation of kids is losing every single day by living in fear.

I think what we did this summer really helped, though. I say that honestly. Some people say it is not enough; that you have to go further. But what we communicated this summer to those kids and the parents is that we care. Our answer isn't nothing, right?

As much as I experience this as a father, I also know that we have made progress and that that progress has been logistical and practical but that it has also been metaphysical; it has been emotional. What we did this summer just gave the kids of this country and the parents of this country a little bit of a feeling that we are going to be there for them and, hopefully, more in the future.

So I am grateful to be on the floor with my colleague today in commemorating everything that we lost at Sandy Hook and in thanking the community members of Sandy Hook for standing up and showing the world the best part of that community.

I am grateful to my colleagues this year for turning a page, for turning a corner in our obligation to keep our kids safe. Senator Blumenthal and I will be here for the 11th anniversary and the 12th and the 13th and, hopefully, we will have more progress to discuss and we will have more positive change brought to this country by the families of Sandy Hook.

Robbie Parker and his wife lost their little daughter, Emilie. Emilie was so cute. She was 6 years old when she died.

Robbie said this: We have learned how to hold on to two things. We can enjoy the things that make us happy--Robbie says about his family, the Parkers--and we can also carry the pain of losing someone and the sorrow that comes with that.

It is OK to feel both things today. It is OK to feel pain for what happened at Sandy Hook, but don't let that consume you, because the Parkers aren't letting it consume them.

Jimmy Greene will tell you that time has not healed his wounds, but I know Nelba and Jimmy. I know that they bring a lot of joy every day.

So feel pain today; feel sorrow; think about those families, but, man, bring some life and some grace. Make a decision that, in your world, you are going to honor those kids' and those adults' memories with some action because, I guess, that is what I think about most today. I am sad for what we have lost, but I am also inspired and hopeful for all of the grace and the kindness that has grown out of this tragedy.

I also realize that, maybe more than anything else today, we should recognize that nothing in our lives that we love should be taken for granted. It can all disappear in an instant. So show that daily grace and kindness that is necessary to communicate to your loved ones, to your friends, to your communities that you don't take them for granted.

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