I, of course, want to express my condolences, as people have on both sides of the aisle, for the grievous loss of life that we've seen in the last two weeks, but, as you said, Mr. President, we see it every day. ...[The] Constitution of the United States of America ...begins with the purpose of why we're all here....: "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and provide for the common defense."

And if you look at that in the context of the slaughter of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans--I'm roughly 50 years old: in my lifetime there are more people that have died of gun violence than in every single war in our nation's history, from the Revolution to the current wars going on right now. Why are we here? Why did we establish this government if not to better defend ourselves? And yet we see slaughter every day and ...we are way out of step with every other nation on the planet Earth in the number of Americans that are being killed, and somehow we don't think we have the power to stop this.

And it hurts. And I tell you, ...these are not [just] statistics. I've stood on too many sidewalks that were stained with blood. I've seen too many bodies. ...[On] more than one occasion, Mr. Chairman, me or one of the people I was with tried desperately to stop someone from bleeding out from gunshot wounds.

And it trashes our strength in our economy, because every gunshot wound in America costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that's nothing compared to what it's doing to our nation's soul.

We must create a more beloved community. ...

—On March 23rd, 2021, Senator Cory Booker spoke as a member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at a hearing on gun violence prevention. The hearing was held, coincidentally, one day after 10 people, including a police officer, were killed by the gunfire of one man with automatic firearms in a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado.