Gun Reform Now

Floor Speech

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Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise because too often in our schools the sounds of students talking and lockers clanking in hallways are giving way to silence and violence.

Today, I rise because desks that should be covered in gum are too often covered in blood, the blood of students and their teachers.

Today, I rise because three 9-year-old children and three adults are dead in Tennessee, as well as the person who killed them.

Tennessee State representatives Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson wanted to bring attention to this tragedy. They wanted to honor the victims of the mass shooting at The Covenant School with action instead of insulting their memories with silence. From the floor of the Tennessee House, they led the public gallery in chants of ``no more silence,'' ``we have to do better,'' and ``gun reform now.''

Tennessee Republicans were so afraid of this message that they expelled Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, the two Black representatives, for their actions.

These two courageous young men knew, as we do, that we cannot wait to be saved from the gun epidemic. They knew there would be more dead.

Unfortunately, since the mass shooting in Nashville on March 27, over 900 additional people were killed by gun violence in our country, 22 in Tennessee alone.

It really makes me sick. It makes me livid that we continue to accept the status quo and that we are comfortable living in a country where at any time our friends, our families, our neighbors, even our children and our grandchildren, can die a horrible death because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the wrong person had a gun.

We will be judged if we don't act, not only by history, not only by our God, but by our children who will inherit our country with this metastasized gun cancer still attached.

I am a Christian. As someone who knows and reads and lives Scripture, I can tell you beyond a doubt that the AR-15, the assault rifle, is the golden calf of Washington, D.C. Too many people in the people's House worship this idol and treat it with reverence. However, just like in Scripture, if we continue to worship this idol, the result will be physical and spiritual death.

I stand with representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones in saying: No more silence. We have to do better. Gun reform now. No more silence. We have to do better. Gun reform now.

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