WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate on Thursday to mark the fifth anniversary of the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School where a gunman murdered 20 first graders and six educators. Murphy highlighted that, despite the pain and suffering that has stemmed from that tragic day, the legacy of the victims lives on in many ways.

Click here to view video of Murphy’s remarks.

“I want to spend my brief time here today not focusing on the sadness of today - it's there, it's inescapable – not focusing on what we haven't done, but focusing on so many miracles, big ones and small ones that have occurred in and around the lives of those that were affected in Newtown, Connecticut, over the last five years,” said Murphy. “While these families will never be the same, they have found ways to rebound. They have found ways to still capture joy in their lives. Some have added to their numbers by welcoming new children into their family since then. They have rediscovered passions. So many of the families joined together with their friends and started up small charitable organizations in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to try to find a way to take the beauty of these kids and transfer it to others. And then there are miracles that have happened in the context of public policy.”

“Keep going,” Murphy continued. “It's what Newtown has done over the last five years. It's what those families have found the courage to do over the last half a decade. For those of us who believe that the laws of this country must change in order to protect kids like those who lost their lives in Sandy Hook, it's what we do. And so as we mark five years since the violence at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we keep going.

The full text of Murphy’s remarks is below:

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I'm on the floor this afternoon to mark five years since the unthinkable – since 20 six and seven-year-olds and six of their educators were killed in an elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. It changed the town of Newtown. It changed this country and the way that we think about gun violence. And it certainly changed me.

So I want to just offer a few thoughts today as we once again memorialize those beautiful children whose lives were cut far, far too short.

And it's easy to spend today, especially those of us who come from Connecticut, who are very intimately connected to the tragedy and to those families, to drown in sadness. There is really no way to conceive of what it's like as a parent to lose a child that young in that manner, in five short minutes in a hail of bullets emanating from a tactical assault weapon. 20 kids who just walked into their classroom bright and cheery were gone. It's easy to hang your head, thinking of all of the things that haven't happened.

I have been down to this floor over 50 times, often at my wit's end, raising my voice at my colleagues in frustration at our quiet and unintentional endorsement of the slaughter that happens in this country because we haven't passed a single piece of legislation trying to make sense of our nation's gun laws. In fact, to the extent we have done changes in gun laws, it's compounded the problem, not remedied it.

But I want to spend my brief time here today not focusing on the sadness of today - it's there, it's inescapable – not focusing on what we haven't done, but focusing on so many miracles, big ones and small ones that have occurred in and around the lives of those that were affected in Newtown, Connecticut, over the last five years. 

First, there are just these individual miracles that have happened within these families. Again, no one, very few people understand the kind of crippling pain that comes with this loss. And while these families will never be the same, they have found ways to rebound. They have found ways to still capture joy in their lives. Some have added to their numbers by welcoming new children into their family since then. They have rediscovered passions. They have made sure that the surviving children, the siblings, have been able to live lives of optimism rather than live lives of perpetual fear. I have gotten to know so many of these families. The parents and the kids are now close personal friends of mine, and watching the rebirth of these families, it just instills a sense of faith in the human spirit that is hard to explain. Those are small miracles, but they are important ones to remember on this five-year anniversary. 

The miracles also come in the ways that lives have been changed and saved through the efforts that have sprung forth out of this tragedy. So many of the families joined together with their friends and started up small charitable organizations in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting to try to find a way to take the beauty of these kids and transfer it to others. They are almost too numerable to mention, but the Ana Grace Project gives out a scholarship every year at Western Connecticut State University for incoming freshmen who are interested in studying music because Ana Grace her whole life was surrounded by music. The Vicki Soto Memorial Fund. It donates five books every year to every K-6 classroom in her hometown of Stratford. She was one of the teachers, one of the heroes of that day. And kids have the opportunity to read and to learn to love reading, which is what she taught to these kindergarten kids, because of her foundation.

The Charlotte Helen Bacon Foundation pays for therapy dogs for kids and families in need, reflecting Charlotte's love of dogs. The Catherine Hubbard Foundation opened an animal sanctuary, 32 acres in Newtown to help animals that have been rescued from abusive or negligent environments because of Catherine's love of animals. And the list just goes on and on. These are small, beautiful miracles that are happening all across Connecticut and all across the country, trying to honor the memory of these kids and their educators.

And then there are miracles that have happened in the context of public policy. I sat at the White House a year ago this week with a few of the Sandy Hook parents quietly in the back of an auditorium as President Obama signed into law the 2016 Mental Health Reform Act that would not have become law without the input and activism of the Sandy Hook parents and many other survivors of gun violence. Our gun violence problem is not a mental health problem, per se. There is no inherent connection between mental illness and gun violence, but there is no mistaking that the shooter in Newtown, as has been the case in so many others of these mass slaughters, had deep mental health problems that went untreated. There have been public policy victories.

And so today on the five-year anniversary, I hope that my friends here will celebrate these small but meaningful miracles that have happened over the last five years, and I hope that you will be reminded that we cannot take one day or one moment for granted.

Those moms and dads who sent their kids to school that morning, they never imagined that that would be the last time that they would be able to interact with their child. And so none of us should think that we will have another chance to say what we want to say to somebody that we care about. None of us should think that we can put off saying ‘I love you’ for another moment. Those small, small things that we do for each other, they matter desperately. 

And I think about one story that I'll leave you with from that morning. Daniel Barden is one of the young boys killed in that elementary school. His older brother went to school at a different time than he did. He would get up earlier and he would go to the bus stop earlier than Daniel would. And so they normally wouldn't see each other in the morning. And for some reason, the morning of the shooting at Sandy Hook, Daniel got up earlier than he normally did. He saw that his brother was at the end of the driveway waiting for the bus, and he ran out of the house, down the driveway to say goodbye to his brother, goodbye for the day. It was just a small, tiny act of kindness that Daniel thought probably would be forgotten by his brother by the end of that day, but it has meant the world to that family – the idea that Daniel got the chance to walk down the driveway and say goodbye to his brother before he went to school that day and never came back. Don't ever think that you will have another chance to say what you want to say to a loved one, to someone that means something in your life. 

A few months ago, one of the Sandy Hook parents arrived unexpectedly in my office, and I got word from the front desk that she was there, and she just wanted to stop in for a few minutes. I said of course, send her back. It was a mom who lost her child who I have come to know very well. And she burst into my office and she flung her arms around me, and she whispered into my ear, ‘Keep going.’ She unclasped her arms and looked at me and said, ‘That's all I wanted to come and tell you.’ After a few pleasantries, she walked out the door.

Keep going. It's what Newtown has done over the last five years. It's what those families have found the courage to do over the last half a decade. For those of us who believe that the laws of this country must change in order to protect kids like those who lost their lives in Sandy Hook, it's what we do. And so as we mark five years since the violence at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we keep going. 

I yield the floor.

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