page_title: Barack Obama Tucson memorial speech
section_title: Summary of speech
hierarchical_section_title: Barack Obama Tucson memorial speech / Summary of speech
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet shooting victims and their family members at the McKale Center before a memorial event for the victims of the 2011 Tucson shooting. Seated in the background is U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords' outreach coordinator Pam Simon, who survived being shot twice.
context_page_description: President of the United States Barack Obama delivered a speech at the Together We Thrive: Tucson and America memorial on January 12, 2011, held in the McKale Center on the University of Arizona campus.
  It honored the victims of the 2011 Tucson shooting and included themes of healing and national unity. Watched by more than 30 million Americans, it drew widespread praise from politicians and commentators across the political spectrum and from abroad.
context_section_description: Early in the speech, Obama said, "There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole in your heart," and said that the hopes of the nation were with those in mourning.
  He quoted from Psalm 46, verses 4 and 5, and then summarized the events of the previous Saturday morning, when six people were killed and Gabrielle Giffords was shot through the head, while "gathered outside a supermarket to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free speech."
  Six times over, he devoted four or five sentences each to summarizing the lives of the six who were killed: Judge John Roll, Dorothy Morris, Phyllis Schenck, Dorwan Stoddard, Congressional aide Gabe Zimmerman and Christina-Taylor Green. Summarizing this section of the speech, he said, "Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken - and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness."
  He then mentioned the 13 people who had survived being shot, specifically Congresswoman Giffords, who was the most seriously injured. He went on to praise the heroism of those who acted to save people, including those who provided emergency first aid, those who helped disarm and subdue the gunman, and the nurses, physicians and emergency personnel who helped save the lives of the wounded.
  He mentioned his visit to the hospital and, with permission from her family, said four times that "Gabby had opened her eyes" for the first time since the shooting, to rapturous and the most sustained applause of the many applause breaks during the speech.
  Obama discussed how people were seeking to make sense out of something senseless by debating issues such as gun safety laws and the adequacy of the mental health treatment system, observing that such discussions were necessary in exercising self-government. He spoke of a new "National Conversation" already beginning after the tragedy.
  He urged that presently polarized national debate be conducted "in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds." Quoting the Book of Job 30:26, he observed that "terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding." He then said, "For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack", and that no one can know "what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man's mind". Urging his listeners to avoid using the tragedy as "one more occasion to turn on one another", he recommended humility, empathy and especially reflection instead, urging people to consider whether they have "shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives".
  He said "we are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame -– but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better."
  He then returned to a tribute to those who were killed, praising their virtues, and concentrating specifically on the example of Christina-Taylor Green, the nine-year-old girl who had been born on September 11, 2001. He recommended that people should be motivated by their loss to "strive to be better in our private lives", and to "help usher in more civility in our public discourse."  At this moment he again addressed the causes of the tragedy, saying " ... let us remember it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy — it did not...."
  Commenting that "those who died here - those who saved lives here - they help me to believe", he observed that, in the end, "people are full of decency and goodness."
  Wrapping up his speech with more anecdotes about Christina-Taylor Green, he said, "All of us — we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations". After referencing heaven and rain puddles there, and "commitment as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit", he closed the speech with a blessing.
caption: Obama meets with shooting victims and their families at the McKale Center.
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