Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, on December 14, 2012, we saw evil, but we also saw good. We saw tragedy, but we also saw actions that should continue to inspire us.

The evil was in a deranged young man who committed unspeakable and unimaginable horrific acts, but the good was exemplified by the police, the emergency responders, and the teachers who not only risked their lives but saved other ones. The good was something that came forward in the days and months and in the past 2 years.

Often I visit the playgrounds that have been built throughout the State of Connecticut in memory of those children, in memory of Charlotte Bacon in West Haven and Ana Grace Marquez-Greene in Hartford, Jessica Rekos in Fairfield, and Dylon Hockley in Westfork, and Victoria Soto in Stratford. I visit them to watch children playing, children often the same age as the wonderful, beautiful children who perished on that day, and parents about the same age as the teachers who lost their lives, sixth-grade educators.

On that day parents in Newtown took their children to school, kissed them goodbye and went about their days, went to work to plan play dates and snack breaks and holiday parties, and just hours into that morning many parents were standing at the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Station where I also went that day. What I saw was through the eyes of a parent, not just a public official, the cries of grief, the faces, and voices filled with tears and longing. Those images I will never forget, and they have redoubled my own determination to try to make America safer and better, to keep faith with those 26 wonderful people whose lives were lost that day, and more than 30,000 people who perished in the United States as a result of violence simply because many of them were in the wrong place at the wrong time--on the street or in neighborhoods or in their own home.

The good that is done every day by our police and firemen and emergency responders to try to stem and stop this epidemic of violence cannot overcome the flood of guns in our Nation and cannot compensate for the lack of effective measures to make America safer and better by making our laws against gun violence more effective.

I will never forget that day or any of the victims or their families, and I hope America never forgets them as well. We are memorializing now their wonderful lives by acts of kindness, but the best and truest way to memorialize them in history is to approve effective, commonsense, sensible measures against gun violence.

In the aftermath of those horrific events of December 14, all of Connecticut, certainly in Newtown, and our State came together to lift those who were so devastatingly impacted, and those families have shown incredible strength. They sat in the gallery, they came to visit us and our colleagues urging action. Congress's failure to act is contemptible and unconscionable and a betrayal of those individuals. The action that is ultimately truest and best as a memorial to them will be for this Congress to act.

In Newtown and around the Nation, every community in some way was affected in those days and in some way came together with Newtown. So my hope is still that that spirit will be an inspiration to action, that it will be an impetus to the Congress for effective, commonsense measures that will protect countless others who are in danger and who will die if Congress does not act.

More than 60,000 firearm deaths have occurred since December 14, 2012.

There are 32,000 firearm deaths per year. Those families have demonstrated unrelenting resolve, and so should we, and we will. It took more than 10 years for the Brady law to be approved, even after a President of the United States was almost assassinated and his Press Secretary, Jim Brady, was severely injured and paralyzed.

I hope it will not take 10 years for action to be taken by Congress, but we need the persistence and perseverance that will carry us through whatever it takes to achieve lasting reform.

I have been proud to serve as a member of the Judiciary Committee and to have worked hard for this measure, helping to lead the effort to approve the ban on high-capacity magazines as well as assault weapons and background checks. But a mental health initiative and school safety initiative have also been part of what we need do. I will continue my work on those efforts--mental health and school safety bills I have introduced, including the Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act.

Lori Jackson was estranged from her husband. She obtained a court order against him because of the real evidence of danger from him. Unfortunately, that court order failed to save her life because it was only temporary, and it failed to take away the guns her husband had. The Lori Jackson Domestic Violence Survivor Protection Act will fill that gap in our laws now.

Women are five times as likely to die as a result of domestic violence when there is a gun in the home. One in five women are victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. That is the reason we need to continue this fight on many fronts. Since that day or about then, on December 14, I have worn a bracelet and I still do. The writing has faded and is no longer visible, but the one thing it said was, ``Love wins.'' I truly believe that love won in Newtown, that love won when Connecticut's legislature passed a strong and effective measure. It was the next step. It is not the end of the work, but the next step. I believe that love won through the grace and courage and strength of the families of those children and the loved ones of the teachers who lost their lives.

I believe love wins every day in our classrooms around the Nation when teachers work hard--and they work hard--and resolve to keep their children safe. Love wins every day when someone stands up and speaks out against gun violence. Love will win, eventually. Honor will win. We will honor those children, and we will celebrate the love they felt so deeply and unconditionally--as only children can--unqualifiedly for their parents and their community. I believe that love will win eventually as long as we keep working.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

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