John, it's Abby. The horrific news out of Texas left my heart broken. 

Right now, there should be 19 kids in Texas sitting down to dinner, just a few days away from summer vacation. Instead, they were shot and killed in an elementary school in the United States of America. So yes, I am heartbroken, but I am also furious. 

We have a problem in America that no other country is battling. This horrific act of violence comes just days after 10 people in a grocery store were shot and killed because of the color of their skin. This should not be happening. This doesn't have to happen.

I was in elementary school when Columbine happened. Nearly two decades later, I voted for commonsense gun legislation – known as H.R. 8 – while representing Iowans in the U.S. House. The bill would have helped protect our children. But it was blocked when it got to the Senate by senators like Chuck Grassley. 

Sen. Grassley has sat on his hands in Washington for 47 years while our children are being murdered in a place that they should feel safe: their schools. He's had nearly FIVE DECADES to take action to end this horrible, unnecessary violence. But he kept on sitting there, along with nearly every single one of his GOP colleagues, refusing to take real action to stop it. He has changed nothing. He has failed every single one of us.

This tragedy is on every spineless politician who has refused to put commonsense gun laws into place. Tragedy after tragedy, we end up here again. It’s horrific. This isn’t freedom – this is terror.

To win real change, to elect leaders who will stand up to the gun lobby, we all have a part to play. I will always fight to keep our kids and our communities safe and do everything within my power to win the legislative change our country desperately needs. Today I am heartbroken; I am furious; I am resolved.

I hope that you will join me in this fight, and that you hug your loved ones a little tighter today.

– Abby