i want to join in your acknowledgement of the parkers want to add an acknowledgement to mark barden of sandy hook promise who's a great friend and leader on this issue, want to thank those that are part of this head table today, clay and kate and mary for all of the work they've done with me and others to try to move forward, this issue of gun violence and i want to ask your forgiveness as i delve into prepared remarks and look forward to answering your questions here today. so december 14th, 2012, day that everybody recognizes, it's a day for me that forced my political career, which at that point was 14 years old, to change course. that morning i was standing on a train platform in bridge port, connecticut, getting ready to take my then 4-year-old and 1-year-old boys down to new york city to see the rockefeller plaza christmas tree and got a call there had been a shooting at sandy hook elementary school and another call telling me that there had been kids involved. a few hours later i was there at the fire house, adjacent to the school as 20 sets of adjacent school with parents inclu