Expressing Sense of House Regarding Arizona Shooting

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I haven't gotten to know Gabrielle Giffords very well yet, and I thank God that by His grace I haven't lost the chance to do so. I didn't know the Americans who came to speak with her that day. But what I do know is that they gathered last Saturday to do something uniquely American.

Gabrielle Giffords was reaching out and listening to her employers, the American people, and they had come to offer her their guidance, advice, and counsel. In this respect, the attack on Gabrielle Giffords and her constituents struck at the very heart of our process of representative democracy, that very point where the American people communicate their views to their elected representatives. That is the linchpin in the entire process of self-government.

This was not only an attack on those who serve; it was an attack on every citizen who steps forward to offer honest advice and counsel and, yes, even criticism to those they have selected to serve them and to serve the Nation.

It is the nature and strength of participatory democracy to have sincere and passionate differences of opinion. But in moments like this, we see the very best of the American people come forward. We put aside our differences and disagreements, and we stand together as one Nation, the American Nation; one race, the American race; one people, the American people. Men and women of goodwill cease to be Republicans or Democrats. We suspend our political agendas; we silence the partisan recriminations, and we stand together as Americans.

By doing so, we pay supreme honor to our fellow citizens who were felled in the exercise of their rights and responsibilities as a free people. We salute the heroes who, without a moment's hesitation, rose to resist and stop this craven and depraved attack, and we assure the world, as Lincoln said, that ``government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.''

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source