WASHINGTON—In a speech on the Senate floor last night, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) spoke about the most recent school shooting that took place on February 14, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which claimed the lives of at least 17 individuals. Durbin also spoke about the 10th anniversary of the tragic shooting at Northern Illinois University (NIU), which claimed the lives of five students and wounded 17 more on February 14, 2008. He also honored Commander Paul Bauer of the Chicago Police Department, who was shot and killed by a gunman in Chicago on February 13, 2018.
“It is devastating to think that in this great country, students and educators could be gunned down in our schools. But it happens so often that I’m afraid a numbness is setting in. Schools and colleges are doing the best they can to prepare and protect their students. I salute the educators and administrators who are working hard. Is Congress doing all it can to keep our nation’s students safe from gun violence? Not even close,” said Durbin. “Of course there is no single reform that could stop every shooting in America. But we know there are big gaps in our laws that make it easy for criminals, abusers, and mentally unstable people to get their hands on guns that hurt innocent people. Congress has done nothing, nothing in recent years to close those gaps and make America safer.”
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Congress has yet to close the gun show loophole that the 1999 Columbine High School killers used to get their weapons. And Congress did nothing in response to the murder of 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012. The only vote the Senate has taken on gun laws in this current Congress was to weaken, not strengthen, the gun laws on the books. That was a vote Senate Republicans brought up in 2017 to prevent the Social Security Administration from alerting the FBI’s gun background check system about people with mental illness.
Durbin also shared the story of Patrick Korellis, who was shot in the head ten years ago at NIU. Patrick survived, and since that day he has been a leader in Illinois fighting for common sense gun reforms.
Durbin continued, “No one should have to go through what Patrick went through and so many others went through on that day in DeKalb, Illinois, ten years ago. We owe it to Patrick and the other NIU victims and family and community members, and to the hundreds of thousands more across America who have been killed or wounded by guns this past decade to keep trying to reduce the toll of gun violence. Maybe we can’t stop every shooting, but if we do our best to keep guns out of dangerous hands, we will save lives. I intend to keep doing my best to achieve that goal.”
