Tragedy At the Covenant School in Nashville

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGARVEY. Madam Speaker, I rise this evening as the convener of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Special Order hour.

We had been planning today to talk about the different budget priorities between Democrats and Republicans. Those are the things I care about. Those are the things I care a lot about. Those are the things I came to Congress excited to address, but we can't talk about those things today, because, once again, we are seeing our children slaughtered in their schools.

Monday morning, I dropped two of my kids off at their elementary school. I actually went in and talked to their class for career day. Their teacher let them give me a hug and walk me back to the front before I got in the car, got on the plane, and came to Washington.

While I was in the air, the tragedy at the Covenant School in Nashville unfolded. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.

Unlike in years past, from Uvalde to Newtown, I haven't been able to hug my own kids yet since the tragedy in Nashville, but those parents in Nashville and in so many schools across this country will never be able to hug their babies again.

We should be outraged. Outraged. Three 9-year-old children were ripped apart from their families by an assault-style weapon in their school, in the place we send them to learn, to grow, to be safe, and to feel safe.

What is more outrageous than three 9-year-olds being slaughtered by an assault-style weapon in their school? It is the 13th school shooting this year--this year--in 2023. It is the 13th school shooting this year.

It would be gut wrenching and awful if it were 13 school shootings in 13 years. It is the 13th school shooting this year.

Now, thank goodness for the courage, the bravery of the National Police Department and the first responders who kept this tragedy from impacting more families, but it should have never happened in the first place.

What are we doing? What are we doing here to stop this, to protect our kids? I heard one of my colleagues from the State where this happened say on the steps of this very building, ``There is nothing we can do.''

I can't accept that. As a policymaker, I can't accept that. As a parent, I can't accept that. You can't say there is nothing we can do when you are willing to do nothing.

I am a person of faith. We raised our family in the church. I believe in the power of prayer, and I am glad that our thoughts and prayers are with the families in Nashville, but thoughts and prayers will never be enough. We must look at legislation and take action so that there are no more school shootings, and we don't have to comfort families who have lost their kids because they simply went to school.

There are things we can and should do. Commonsense reforms that will keep our kids and our people safe. Let's start with universal background checks. Ninety percent of the American public wants us to have universal background checks, where to buy a firearm in this country, you have to get a background check so that we know you are not in crisis or otherwise ineligible to buy a firearm.

Instead, we see extremists in the other party willing to put gun manufacturers over people. We should ban assault weapons. These are weapons of war that have no place on our streets.

Just today, on the front page of The Washington Post, there is an expose on the AR-15. It goes into the detail we have far too often sanitized about what an assault-style rifle does to the body of a person and the body of a child. It has rendered kids unrecognizable in school shootings such as in Uvalde, Texas.

There was a product in the 1980s, lawn darts, that was dangerous for kids. We banned that; but we are not willing to ban these assault-style rifles? That is because extremists right now want to put guns over kids.

Let's talk about extreme risk protection orders. Measures that would actually keep people safe by temporarily removing a firearm from someone who is in crisis. We can't talk about gun violence in this country without recognizing that 60 percent of the gun deaths in America are death by suicide. It could help other people, as well.

I have a constituent, Whitney Austin. She was a mom. She was a project manager at Fifth Third Bank. She traveled up to Cincinnati from Louisville, Kentucky, to go to work. As she was walking into the office building, she was shot 12 times as part of what ended up being a mass shooting in Cincinnati. She never considered politics or gun policy before, because Louisville, like so many places in this country, is a small place. We call it ``Louis-village.''

She was friends with a person I went to high school with, and before she got home from the hospital, she said, What can I do to help? I met her in her house the day she came home. Her hair was still wet from having washed the blood out of it. We worked on legislation in the Kentucky General Assembly, legislation that I introduced with a Republican colleague from a rural part of our State that would keep people safe while respecting people's rights. Instead, we see, again, a party willing to put guns over people.

Let's talk about responsible gun ownership and laws that would encourage safe storage. Look what happened a couple weeks ago in Houston. A 3-year-old shot and killed her 4-year-old sister. A couple of days before that, a 7-year-old boy in Cleveland died from a suspected accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Just last month, a 3-year-old boy in Orlando and a 4-year-old boy in Nashville each shot themselves dead with guns they found. A month before that, a 6-year-old girl in Virginia accidentally shot and killed her teacher in Virginia.

These are toddlers; but we see people willing to put guns over kids. We must try to do something. Bring these measures to a vote. Bring these measures to the floor. Let us vote on them. Tell the American people that you believe in guns over kids instead of universal background checks.

We have got to do something. We have had 38 mass shootings this month alone, and so far, 130 in just the first 86 days of this year. More than 10,000 gun deaths, and we are not even out of March.

Bring this to a vote. Replace thoughts and prayers with legislation and action. Instead of legislation and action, what we are getting from extreme MAGA Republicans are slogans, not solutions.

We are hearing slogans like ``Guns Make Us Safer.'' How can you say that when guns are now the leading cause of death for children in this country?

Will the measures I have mentioned end gun violence in America? No, of course not.

Will they save lives? Yes, absolutely they will, and they will make our children safer. There is no doubt about it.

Every day that we delay, every day that we continue to refuse to take action, to put guns over people and guns over kids, we will almost certainly cause unnecessary death.

I spent 10 years in the State Senate of Kentucky. During that time, I was in the minority. For 10 years, I worked to represent my constituents but always found common ground. That is what I came to Washington to do, to continue to try to find common ground.

We cannot compromise when it comes to our kids' lives. To all of my colleagues in this body, neither should you.

Today, I am just another dad in America who is sad for the parents who won't have their kids with them this Easter, sad for the parents who have lost their children to the senseless scourge of gun violence; angry, hurting, looking to Congress to act; pleading with my colleagues to bring these bills up for debate and to a vote to stop putting guns over kids.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Lee), my colleague.

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Mr. McGARVEY. Madam Speaker, the comments from my colleague from Pennsylvania make me think back to last spring after the Uvalde crisis. I said every policymaker in the country should have had to drop their kids off at school the day after that shooting.

It was all over the news, and we didn't know whether to show our twins, our fourth graders, what was going on. I wanted to talk to them about it and ask them if they were okay, ask them if they felt scared.

My son looked at me and said: ``It's okay, Dad. We practice active shooter drills in school. We'll be ready.''

No child should have to comfort their parents in that way. We should be working to protect our kids from this scourge. Instead, we see a party putting guns over our kids.

I got an email after the Nashville shooting from the dad of a friend of mine from law school. He wrote to me and said:

Thank you for such a heartfelt, meaningful comment on the Nashville school tragedy. Too bad others don't have the guts to say what you did.

I don't know if you heard from my son, but one of the three 9-year-olds who died was my granddaughter's friend and basketball teammate. Nine years old. Think about that.

This is something simply impossible for me to process, and how do you explain it to a child?

The boilerplate thoughts and prayers we still hear from those who refuse to do anything to stop the gun violence won't help my granddaughter understand why her friend had to die from a bullet.

The gun advocates are all about their constitutional right to bear arms, yet this grandfather wonders about a 9-year- old's constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, something which far too many of our children are being denied. It's just so sad.

Thank you again for saying exactly what needs to be said again, again, and again until this craziness comes to an end.

We control that, Madam Speaker. We have some say in whether this craziness comes to an end from commonsense, publicly supported reforms: universal background checks, banning assault weapons, extreme risk protection orders, making sure we have responsible gun ownership, making sure that guns are no longer the leading cause of death among our children.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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