Recognizing the Sixth Anniversary of the Parkland Shooting

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. MOSKOWITZ. Madam Speaker, today is Valentine's Day, but I don't celebrate Valentine's Day anymore. I haven't celebrated Valentine's Day in 6 years. Today is a difficult day for myself, many in the city of Parkland, and my constituents. You see, it is the sixth anniversary of the mass shooting at my high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas in my hometown of Parkland.

I remember February 14, 2018, like it was yesterday. I was in Tallahassee when my wife called and said something terrible has happened at the high school around the corner from our home. I was informed that there had been a mass shooting.

I immediately traveled home to Parkland. I went to the school that I graduated from and saw what it looks like when your high school is turned into a war zone.

I then went to the hotel where they were keeping the families of the kids who were missing. I knew they weren't missing.

For 8 hours, they waited in that hotel while the Broward Sheriff's Office and the FBI told them what happened to their kid. They pulled families out one by one into a separate area of the ballroom separated by a partition. The process went on from 12:30 in the morning until 3 in the morning. I didn't hear crying. I heard screaming. It haunts me every day.

Madam Speaker, 17 innocent people didn't make it out of that building on that fateful day. I knew we had to do something, and so I brought my colleagues from the Florida legislature to see the building firsthand and see how it affected families in my community.

What we saw was unfathomable to imagine--the sight of the deadliest high school shooting in American history.

Families now have empty rooms in their homes. They have empty chairs at the dinner table. My own son, who was 4 years old at the time, went to preschool right around the corner separated by a traffic light from Marjory Stoneman Douglas. The teacher that was with my 4-year-old in a closet that day, her daughter was killed. While she was protecting my son, her daughter, Jaime, was killed at Douglas.

Like previous Valentine's Days, parents and wives will spend their time visiting their children or their husbands at the cemetery.

I remember parents telling me one thing, and they said it over and over, and it has stuck with me ever since. They said that the only thing I did wrong was send my kid to school. That is not on them. That is an indictment on us. It is an indictment on the elected officials who have failed to do nothing to keep our kids safe in school.

I mean, look at them. These were babies murdered in their classroom. They were teachers. I went to high school with Aaron Feis. He was on my football team when we were in high school. He became a football coach. He ran in to try to help, and he was gunned down.

At least in Florida we did something after the shooting at my high school. The Florida legislature passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School Safety Act. It raised the age to buy a firearm to 21. It instituted red flag laws and 3-day waiting periods. By the way, those red flag laws which take weapons out of the hands of people who are mentally ill have been used 12,000 times in 6 years. Madam Speaker, 12,000 times law enforcement in the State of Florida has deemed someone either a danger to themselves or a danger to others.

We put hundreds of millions of dollars into mental health, school resource officers, school safety, and this was passed on a bipartisan basis. In fact, it was led by my Republican colleagues, A-plus rated members of the NRA, and signed into law by Governor Scott who became a U.S. Senator. They got it right that day. They got it right. We did that while still upholding people's constitutional freedoms and rights.

Madam Speaker, as we sadly reflect today on the sixth anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I am going to use the rest of my time to sit in silence after I read the names of the victims: Alyssa Alhadeff, Martin Duque Anguiano, Scott Beigel, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jaime Guttenberg, Chris Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, and Peter Wang.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source