Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will retire at the end of the year. But before he goes, he took one last opportunity to push gun control.

Duncan used the deaths of young people to make an emotional case for gun control. “Sixteen thousand. In my first six years as secretary of education, that’s the number of young people who were killed across our country,” Duncan said, choking up. “That’s an average of seven a day. That’s a devastating loss.” He went on to tell stories of students he met with who didn’t think they would live until adulthood.