U.S. Senator Tim Kaine delivered a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate regarding the horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas that killed at least 19 children and two adults. Watch the video here.
During his remarks, Kaine spoke about the impact of the Virginia Tech shooting that occurred in April 2007 while he was governor, which killed 32 people and wounded 17 others. Kaine has consistently lamented the fact that Congress failed to act in the wake of Virginia Tech—which was the most deadly shooting in American history at the time—to prevent the many mass shootings that followed, including last week’s racist attack in Buffalo that killed 10 people.
Kaine said, “I feel like I'm back in April of 2007, experiencing those emotions for the first time My emotional reaction – that's kind of a PTSD thing – is not just because of the shootings, not just because of the deaths, not just because of the promising lives cut short. It is compounded by a realization that here in this body we've done nothing. It would be bad enough to experience the violence and be reminded of that most painful time in my life. But to experience it as a U.S. Senator, as a member of a body, and to say well, ‘what have we done?’
"We didn't do anything at the federal level after Virginia Tech, and we didn't do anything after Pulse, and we didn't do anything after Las Vegas, and we didn't do anything after Sandy Hook, and we didn't do anything after one tragedy after the next. And that compounds, and in some ways, that is the thing that makes the emotional reaction a reaction that is as fresh today as it was in April of 2007. It's a wound that can't heal until we do something to heal the injury, to heal the problem.”
Despite what we often say after tragedies like this, our thoughts and our prayers and our sincere emotions, if we don't demonstrate by more than just words that we are touched by these tragedies, then we are committing the sin of indifference,” Kaine continued.
“There's nothing we can do to bring back the lives of these young people. But if we can act to decrease the chance that this would ever happen again, they will at least have the ability to grab on and say our advocacy made a difference, and kids who go to school will be safer in the future,” Kaine continued.
Kaine continues to vocally call for the Senate passage of the Virginia Plan to Reduce Gun Violence. He crafted the legislation with Senator Mark Warner to federally enact gun violence prevention measures passed in Virginia, including universal background checks, among other steps.
"We must pass our Virginia Plan to Reduce Gun Violence Act ASAP," Kaine tweeted. "Mark Warner and I introduced this bill to federally enact gun violence prevention measures passed in Virginia, including universal background checks. If we can do it in the NRA's backyard, we can do it in Congress."
"Our Virginia Plan to Reduce Gun Violence Act means: Universal background checks," Kaine tweeted. "One-handgun-a-month limit. Reporting lost/stolen firearms. Preventing firearm access to minors. Strengthening safeguards for domestic violence victims. Extreme Risk Protection Orders. Let's act NOW."
Read more about the legislation here.