News

Washington, D.C. –U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Bill Nelson (D-FL) today hosted a press conference on the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act, along with Senators Steve Daines (R-MT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Dan Sullivan (R-AK).
 
Joining the senators were Kyle Kashuv, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and Ryan and Patrick Petty, the father and brother of Parkland student Alaina Petty, who was tragically killed in the recent shooting.  
  
Rubio recently outlined a multipronged plan to address gun violence following the Parkland tragedy. Several Rubio proposals have already gained promising momentum.
 
A partial transcript of Rubio’s remarks is below. A live stream is available here.
 
RUBIO: I want to thank Senator Hatch for convening this and everybody for being here. In a moment, I’m going to present you to Ryan Petty and his son Patrick, who are the father and brother of Alaina Petty, who lost her life at Stoneman Douglas High School on the 14th of February. And also, Kyle Kashuv, who is a student and who has really been involved here over the last week or so, meeting with an impressive array of people across political lines to try to find a solution to this terrible problem that we fear could happen again.
 
About a week ago, I believe the parents, the families, the 17 families impacted by this showed a great example to the nation of how to proceed. They met over a series of hours on a Sunday and they had to come to a decision about whether they can come together and get behind legislation in Tallahassee, Florida. And for some family members, it didn’t go far enough. And for others, it went too far. They had differences of opinions on different provisions. But ultimately, they determined that they would agree on what they could agree on and get those things done and then continue to work on the other things that they may disagree on. I think that’s an example to the nation and it’s an example to us who work here about how we should proceed.
 
There are things that we agree on and the notion that we should do everything we can to put in place systems to identify and to stop someone before they commit an act of violence, be it a mass shooting or taking their own lives, is something we can all agree on. And the fact that across this country, whether it’s in Utah or the L.A. school district, there are programs that are successfully doing it, give us a model to follow. And that’s what the STOP School Violence Act is about. It is not designed to solve every issue or every problem with regards to this. But it is designed to address the most important part of this, and that is that we have individuals in this country that for various different reasons have committed themselves to taking the lives of other people, and we need to find out who they are and we need to stop them before they do it.
 
This is a bill that enjoys broad bipartisan support and in a moment you will hear from my colleague from Florida, Bill Nelson. But I want to quickly read through the list of the cosponsors of this bill. Senators Klobuchar,  Jones, Collins, Blumenthal, Senator King, the Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senator Young, Senator Murphy, Senator Smith, Senator Grassley, Senator Daines who joins us here today. Obviously I mentioned Senator Nelson, Senator Peters, the Majority Whip Senator Cornyn, Senator Moran, Senator Stabenow, Senator Heinrich, Senator Heller, Senator Blunt, Senator Heitkamp, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Cassidy, Senator Roberts, Senator Baldwin, Senator Wyden, Senator Capito, Senator Hoeven, Senator Brown, Senator Portman, Senator Murkowski, Senator Fisher, Senator Udall, Senator Sullivan and Senator Ernst who also joins us here today. This is a bill that has growing bipartisan support.
 
We should get behind it. We should pass it. And we should move forward and continue to debate or address the other issues, because identifying these people before they take action is the most important thing we can do and the most effective thing we can do. And it’s something we all agree on.
 
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[en español]
 
Brevemente, esta es una ley que ayuda a identificar a las personas que tienen la intención de cometer un acto violento, identificarlos y pararlos antes que tomen esa acción [es el objetivo]. Eso es sumamente importante, hay grandes diferencias sobre diferentes temas en el tema de las armas de fuego, pero una de las cosas en la que si estamos de acuerdo de manera bipartidista es que, si podemos identificar a alguien antes que tome acción violenta y pararlos, eso es algo en lo que todos estamos de acuerdo y que debemos hacer lo más pronto posible.