In Aftermath of Michigan School Shooting, Levin Calls on Senate to Pass Gun Safety Legislation

Sense of the Senate Amendment calls on Congress to act prior to April 20, the date of the Columbine shootings last year

WASHINGTON -- On the Senate floor today, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., called on the Senate to pass gun safety legislation prior to April 20,2000, the date of the school shootings in Littleton, Colorado, a year ago. His comments follow the death of six-year-old Kayla Rolland in a school shooting this week in Mount Morris Township, Michigan. Following are Levin's remarks:

It has now been almost a year since the deadly shooting at Columbine. The images of Columbine's teenagers clinging for life and screaming in terror are forever printed in our minds. Not many of us could forget the horror of those scenes unfolded before us on national television. Yet, somehow it seems that Congress has forgotten the unforgettable.

Now, in yet another school shooting, the tragic senseless death of another child, this time in my home state of Michigan, has reminded us of the terror of gun violence and the toll that it takes on young people. According to a press report, "the shooting stunned even gun-control advocates immersed in the details of school violence: If a 6-year-old can get a gun, they said, the problem is worse than anyone thought."

The first-grade shooting that occurred this week in Mount Morris Township near Flint, Michigan is surely shocking because of the nature of the circumstances: an alleged 6-year-old gunman living in a house, with easy accessibility to guns, and little comprehension of the consequences of his act. But nobody can really, any longer claim shock or surprise that another life was lost to gun violence. No one can really, any longer claim shock or surprise that another one of our children did not make it home from school.

We have known, long before Columbine that gun violence claims the lives of 12 children on the average each day. We know that gun violence results in injury and death, destroys families, and causes lasting psychological and emotional harm. Buell Elementary's counselors will now try to cope with the trauma that comes when schoolchildren shoot schoolchildren. And too many other school districts now know, that violence and the fear of violence is not only devastating to the children and the families involved, it can also infect the learning environment.

We cannot allow ourselves to become desensitized to the tragedies of gun violence. As a Detroit Free Press writer put it at Buell: "the first-grade classroom, so vibrant with the piping voices of children early Tuesday morning, had been commandeered by police detectives, searching for the meaning behind the unthinkable." Congress must pass gun safety legislation before more children's voices are silenced by the sounds of gunfire and sirens.