[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 30 (Monday, March 4, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1090-S1093]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEAHY (for himself, Ms. Collins, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. 
        Gillibrand, Mr. Kirk, Mr. Blumenthal, and Mr. King):
  S. 443. A bill to increase public safety by punishing and deterring 
firearms trafficking; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. LEAHY. Today I am proud to introduce modified legislation to 
combat the practice of straw purchasing and illegal trafficking in 
firearms. Since my initial introduction of the Stop Illegal Trafficking 
in Firearms Act at the very beginning of the 113th Congress on January 
22, I have had productive conversations with several Senators who share 
my goal of reducing this destructive criminal conduct. Today I am 
pleased to be joined by Senator Collins, Senator Durbin, Senator Kirk, 
Senator Gillibrand, and Senator Blumenthal. These Senators understand 
the weaknesses in our current law and the challenges faced by law 
enforcement officials. I thank them for their commitment to this 
legislation, for their support of law enforcement, and for their 
cooperation in making progress in our collective efforts to prevent and 
reduce gun violence.
  I hope that as other Senators on both sides of the aisle become more 
familiar with our bipartisan proposal, they will understand how it 
provides law enforcement with the tools they need to go after those who 
engage in the straw purchasing and illegal trafficking of firearms. The 
practice of straw purchasing is used for one thing to put firearms into 
the hands of those that are prohibited by law from having them. Many 
are then used to further violent crimes.
  I have heard again and again from Senators on both sides of the aisle 
that keeping guns away from those who should not have them is a goal 
worth pursuing. This bill will further that effort and help answer the 
call from Gabrielle Giffords and so many Americans for us to take 
action.
  I want to commend the senior Senator from Maine, Senator Collins, for 
her leadership on this matter and for her willingness to work across 
the aisle to make real progress. She helped unite us to get this done. 
Without her, we would not have made the progress we have, or be in 
position to consider this comprehensive response to what law 
enforcement has told us they need.
  This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue our 
consideration of four measures to reduce gun violence. The issue of gun 
trafficking and straw purchasing is before the Committee. I will amend 
my original trafficking bill that is pending on the Committee agenda 
with the text of this bipartisan compromise, which combines the 
proposals that I put forward with Senator Durbin at the beginning of 
this Congress as well as proposals that have been championed by Senator 
Gillibrand and Senator Kirk. Our substitute amendment will improve the 
language already pending before the Committee. As I did before 
introducing any measure related to gun violence this year, I also hope 
to continue my outreach to the Judiciary Committee's Ranking Member. I 
invite Senator Grassley and other members of the Committee from both 
sides of the aisle to join with us so that I can report this measure 
with strong bipartisan support and without delay for consideration by 
the Senate.
  Law enforcement officials have complained for years that they lack 
the legal tools necessary effectively to combat illegal straw 
purchasing and firearms trafficking. Congressional inquiry during the 
last Congress put a spotlight on the very difficult legal environment 
within which law enforcement officials currently operate. In fact, one 
of the whistleblowers who testified about the misguided tactics used by 
Federal law enforcement in firearms trafficking investigations in 
Arizona described the current laws as ``toothless.'' If we are to 
address gun violence, we should respond to this clear vulnerability 
that is being exploited by criminals.
  The Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act will make important 
changes to Federal firearms statutes that will better equip law 
enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute the all-too-common 
practices of straw purchasing and illegal trafficking of firearms. 
Straw purchases typically involve a person, who is not prohibited by 
Federal law, purchasing a firearm on behalf of a prohibited person, or 
at the direction of a drug trafficking or other criminal organization. 
These practices result in the support of larger criminal organizations, 
and the illegally obtained guns are often sold and re-sold across state 
lines. This trafficking in firearms results in the proliferation of 
illegal firearms and gun violence in our communities. Straw

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purchasers circumvent the purposes of the background check system, and 
they put law enforcement officials and law-abiding firearms dealers in 
difficult positions. Gun trafficking and straw purchasing make our 
communities less safe.
  Under current law, there is no specific statute that makes it illegal 
to act as a straw purchaser of firearms. Nor is there a law directly on 
point to address the illegal trafficking of firearms. As a result, 
prosecutors must cobble together charges against a straw purchaser 
using so-called ``paperwork'' violations such as misrepresentations on 
a Federal form. These laws are imperfect, and do not give prosecutors 
the leverage needed to encourage straw buyers, often the lowest rungs 
on a ladder in a criminal enterprise, to provide the information needed 
for investigators and prosecutors to go after those directing and 
profiting from such activity.
  The bipartisan bill we introduce today will add two new provisions to 
our Federal criminal code to specifically prohibit serving as a straw 
purchaser of firearms and trafficking in firearms. The bill establishes 
tough penalties for these offenses in an effort to punish and 
importantly, deter this conduct. We need a meaningful solution to this 
serious problem. Talk about prosecuting mere paperwork offenses is no 
answer.
  Under current law, it is a crime to transfer a firearm to another 
with the knowledge that the firearm will be used in criminal activity. 
This bill would strengthen this existing law by prohibiting such a 
transfer where the transferor has ``reasonable cause to believe'' that 
the firearm will be used in criminal activity. We listened to concerns 
about family members who give firearms as gifts and other transfers 
that are not designed to get around the existing background check 
system. As a result, the bill contains important exemptions for the 
innocent transfer of a firearm as a gift, or in relation to a 
legitimate raffle, auction or contest.
  Another key provision of our bipartisan bill is that it complements 
existing law that makes it a crime to smuggle firearms into the United 
States by specifically prohibiting the smuggling of firearms out of the 
United States. In light of what we know is occurring, particularly on 
our Southwest border, this is an important improvement to current law 
and another tool that was needed but missing over the last few years.
  The provisions laid out in our legislation are focused, commonsense 
remedies to the very real problems of firearms trafficking and straw 
purchasing. Our bill does not affect lawful purchases from Federal 
firearms licensees, and in no way alters their rights and 
responsibilities as sellers of a lawful commodity. I hope Federal 
firearms licensees welcome a stronger deterrent to keep criminal straw 
purchasers out of their business.
  The problems of gun trafficking and straw purchasers, particularly 
along the Southwest border, are matters we have been talking about for 
years. Senator Durbin chaired a hearing on border violence back in 
early 2009. Law enforcement officials have called for a firearms 
trafficking statute that can be effective to go after straw purchasers. 
That is something agents did not have when they initiated Operation 
Wide Receiver during the Bush administration and later the disastrous 
Fast and Furious effort. Their frustration with the limits of the 
current law contributed to their looking for another way to make a 
difference in their fight against gun trafficking. Their initiative was 
a failure. What we need to do now is to create better law enforcement 
tools. I hope that those who have been concerned about Fast and 
Furious, whose investigation established that it was the local ATF 
agents in Arizona who initiated and so poorly implemented that effort, 
will join with us to close the loophole in the law that Mexican drug 
cartels are continuing to exploit.
  Our bill was drafted at the request of law enforcement. It will 
provide needed tools to fight against the drug cartels and other 
criminals who threaten our communities. It will not undermine the 
Second Amendment rights of lawful gun owners. It has the support of 
many law enforcement organizations--both leadership and rank and file. 
Indeed, the original bill I introduced with Senator Durbin has been 
supported by the National Fraternal Order of Police, the National Law 
Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, the Federal Law 
Enforcement Officers Association, the International Association of 
Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the National 
District Attorneys Association, and the Police Executive Research 
Forum. I urge everyone who cares about keeping firearms out of the 
hands of criminals to join in this effort.
  We have an obligation to find solutions to reduce gun violence and I 
thank these Senators for their strong leadership. We can do this in a 
way consistent with the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment. I 
believe our bipartisan legislation meets those goals. As Chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee, a Senator, a Vermonter, an American, a father 
and a grandfather, I look forward to continuing our progress on this 
important legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, let me begin my remarks by thanking the 
distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee for his very gracious 
comments and for his extraordinary leadership on a bill that I believe 
can bring all of us together.
  I also want to thank our other cosponsors of the bill, particularly 
Senator Gillibrand, who has had a great interest in cracking down on 
the practice of straw purchasing.
  The practice of straw purchasing is intended to achieve one result--
to put a gun in the hands of a criminal. These individuals are easily 
exploiting currently weak Federal laws to obtain guns.
  Peter Forcelli, ATF Supervisory Special Agent and Fast and Furious 
whistleblower, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee 
in June of 2011 that: ``Some people view [the current penalties for 
straw purchasing] as no more consequential than doing 65 in a 55 
zone.''
  These guns are frequently sold, resold, and trafficked across State 
lines, resulting in the proliferation of illegal firearms in our 
communities. This has also fueled the violence across our southern 
border associated with Mexican drug cartels as well as gang violence in 
our cities.
  Straw purchasing and gun trafficking put guns in the hands of 
criminals. According to the ATF, of the nearly 94,000 firearms that 
have been recovered in Mexico in the last 5 years, more than 64,000 
were sourced to the United States. Similarly, a large percentage of the 
guns used in crimes in our largest cities were trafficked across State 
lines.
  The congressional inquiry into the ATF's Wide Receiver and Fast and 
Furious investigations revealed how difficult it is for law enforcement 
officials to deter and punish these crimes effectively.
  Current loopholes in Federal law make preventing and prosecuting 
these offenses very difficult for law enforcement officials. Right now, 
a straw purchaser can only be prosecuted for lying on a Federal form, 
which is treated as a paperwork violation.
  Because straw purchasers by definition are nonprohibited persons and 
can lawfully purchase a firearm, prosecuting these individuals is 
difficult and any potential punishment is likely to be minimal.
  Because of these weak laws, prosecutors have minimal leverage over 
straw purchasers who, in turn, have little incentive to cooperate and 
assist law enforcement in investigating trafficking crimes and crimes 
involving gun violence. For years, law enforcement has been asking 
Congress for better tools to crack down on this type of criminal 
conduct.
  It is time to give law enforcement the tools it needs to combat this 
activity effectively.
  Our bill reflects a combination of advice from law enforcement 
officials and leadership by many Senators. It gives law enforcement 
officials the comprehensive framework they have been seeking from 
Congress.
  First, the bill creates new, specific criminal offenses for straw 
purchasing and trafficking in firearms. Instead of a slap on the wrist, 
these crimes would be punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
  The proposal also increases the punishment for an individual who 
serves as

[[Page S1092]]

an organizer of a straw purchasing or trafficking enterprise.
  This bipartisan bill also strengthens existing laws that make it 
unlawful to smuggle guns into the United States.
  The bill protects legitimate private sales and is drafted to avoid 
sweeping in innocent transactions and placing unnecessary burdens on 
lawful private sales.
  When buying from a private seller, the buyer is only in violation of 
the new straw purchasing prohibition if the buyer purchases a firearm 
for someone known to the buyer as a prohibited person, meaning a felon, 
drug addict, someone subject to a domestic violence order, or someone 
with serious mental illness.
  When buying from a federally licensed firearms dealer, it is 
prohibited to buy a firearm on behalf of or for another person. This is 
consistent with current law that requires a person buying from a dealer 
to certify that they are the ``actual buyer.'' It is important to note, 
however, that the bill also expressly exempts transactions like gifts 
and transfers that occur in raffles and auctions.
  The bill is supported by numerous organizations, including the 
Fraternal Order of Police, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 
Association, the FBI Agents Association, the International Association 
of Chiefs of Police, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the National 
Law Enforcement Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, the National 
District Attorneys Association, and the Police Executive Research 
Forum.
  This bill helps to keep guns out of the hands of criminals without 
infringing in any way upon the second amendment right of law-abiding 
citizens.
  I urge my colleagues to support this much needed legislation.
  I am, again, very pleased to have been able to work under the 
leadership of the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I am delighted 
he is going to proceed to mark up our bipartisan compromise this week, 
and I thank him for the opportunity to work with him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an issue that 
every mother in America is thinking about. Every parent in America who 
saw what happened in Connecticut bleeds for this issue. We have to do 
something in our country about senseless gun crime. We have to do 
something about making sure criminals do not have easy access to 
weapons to shoot down our children and loved ones in the areas that 
should be the safest places for them. We have seen these mass deaths, 
whether at a school, whether at a university, whether in a movie 
theater, whether in a community center; these crimes are happening over 
and over again.
  I can tell you that from when I was first appointed to the Senate in 
2009, I have realized our State of New York suffers from grave gun 
crime all across our State. We have gang violence. We have gun 
trafficking. We have straw purchasing. Networks of weapons flow into 
our State. Eighty-five percent of the weapons used in crimes in my 
State come from out of State and 90 percent of those weapons are 
illegal.
  I had to look into the eyes of parents who had just lost their 
daughter because of a stray bullet from a gang member. Nyasia's parents 
deserve an answer. The parents of the children in Connecticut deserve 
an answer.
  I have good news today because the Senate is working on a bipartisan 
bill that is introduced today by the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, Chairman Leahy, to begin to solve this problem. This bill 
has wide bipartisan support. It started out with Senator Mark Kirk and 
I working together. He has a real tough problem in Illinois with gang 
violence that he wanted to address and crack down on. That bipartisan 
work began to address other bipartisan work. The ranking member, 
Senator Grassley, was very interested in this bill and has been working 
with us to shape the bill, make it stronger. Susan Collins, who has 
been a leader on this issue, began to work with us to shape this bill 
and make it better. Senator Leahy and Senator Durbin have been working 
on the issue separately. We all joined forces to begin to write a bill 
that can tackle this problem, to make it a stronger solution, a better 
solution.
  We now have cosponsors. We have the Presiding Officer right now, 
Senator Joe Donnelly. We have both Senators from Connecticut who must 
answer the parents of their State, that they are doing something about 
these senseless deaths. Senator Blumenthal, a former attorney general, 
knows what law enforcement needs to take on these criminals. Senator 
Murphy, Senator Klobuchar--also a previous attorney general--know what 
it takes to crack down on these kinds of crime and this senseless 
death. Senator King, an Independent, also signs on to this bill because 
he knows it can do something to crack down on gun violence in this 
country.
  Of all the laws on the books in this country today, not one Federal 
law says you cannot buy a truckload of guns, bring them to another 
State, and sell them to a criminal network. It is not even prohibited. 
You would not believe it. How could that be true in a country such as 
ours, where the Federal Government's No. 1 job is to protect our 
families? That is what this bill does. It makes it a Federal crime to 
traffic, to be a straw purchaser, to sell these guns to criminal 
networks with the intent of breaking the law.
  The law enforcement agencies--whether it is ATF, NYPD, FBI--will now 
have the tools they need on the Federal level to begin to tackle this 
crisis.
  I urge my colleagues on both side of the aisle, if they want to do 
something about the senseless gun deaths in this country, this is a 
bill they can support. For all the law-abiding gun owners in this 
country who support the second amendment, as I do, they can look at 
this bill and say: That is a bill we are supporting; that bill should 
pass because it goes after the criminals and the illegal weapons that 
are the scourge of this country. Thirty people get killed a day because 
of gun violence--30 deaths. One is too many. When I look at Nyasia's 
parents, one is too many.
  Enough is enough. I am certain that when this bill passes this 
Chamber and when law enforcement begins to have the tools, we will save 
lives.
  I thank my colleagues again for all the hard work they have done. I 
thank Senator Mark Kirk for his courage for being the first Republican 
to stand up to do a gun bill, the first bipartisan gun bill introduced 
in this Chamber.
 Mr. KIRK. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Stop Illegal 
Trafficking in Firearms Act of 2013, which I am proud to join in 
introducing with Senators Leahy, Gillibrand, Durbin and Collins. There 
are an estimated 33,000 gangs with 1.4 million active members who live 
in our neighborhoods, towns and cities across the United States. With 
more than 100,000 gang members, the city of Chicago has more gang 
members who terrorize its residents than any other city in the United 
States. The Chicago Crime Commission also reported the existence of an 
additional 15,000 gang members operating in our suburbs.
  Gangs such as the Vice Lords, Gangster Disciples, and the Latin Kings 
are responsible for nearly 80 percent of the city's homicides, which 
just last summer amounted to 500 deaths in Chicago. These homicides are 
most often perpetrated with illegal weapons. Law enforcement officers 
in Chicago confiscate an average of 13,000 illegal weapons each year. 
It must end.
  That is why I have joined this bipartisan group to take serious 
action to prevent weapons trafficking and straw purchasing, where a 
third party member legally purchases a firearm then sells or trades it 
to a criminal who is legally barred from purchasing such a weapon. Our 
bipartisan, consensus legislation includes the Gun Trafficking 
Prevention Act, which Senator Gillibrand and I introduced earlier this 
year, that would for the first time make it a Federal crime to traffic 
illegal guns. The Stop Illegal Trafficking in Firearms Act also 
strengthens the tools law enforcement need to crack down on straw 
purchasers, particularly those who transfer those weapons in 
furtherance of crimes of violence or drug trafficking. This legislation 
also calls upon the Sentencing Commission to substantially increase the 
penalties when these crimes are committed by individuals affiliated 
with gangs and other criminal enterprises.
  A portion of this new anti-illegal gun trafficking legislation is 
named after

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Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old who was shot and killed by gang gunfire 
in Chicago. For Hadiya and thousands of other victims, my hope is we 
can break through the gridlock here in Washington to actually get 
something done to save lives.
                                 ______