[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 50 (Monday, April 15, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2633-S2637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               GUN SAFETY

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, we are about to enter into an incredibly 
important debate about a series of issues relating to violence--
specifically, gun violence--in our communities all across America.
  Today I rise to speak about a very important bipartisan amendment I 
will be offering with Senator Roy Blunt and others called the 
Excellence in Mental Health Act. This addresses a very important piece 
of the discussion. It is an opportunity for us to come together amidst 
a lot of controversial debate and agree on something that is a very 
important piece of the puzzle--having access to comprehensive, quality 
mental health services.
  This weekend we heard from Francine Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son Ben 
was murdered on December 14 in Newtown, CT. We know that Ben was one of 
26 people--20 children--who lost their lives. I can only begin to 
imagine what all of us as parents would feel in that situation. For 
those 26 victims and the 3,300 other Americans killed since then in 
acts of gun violence, it is time to take action. I am hopeful, given 
the strong bipartisan vote we had to move forward on this debate, that 
we can actually have the debate, that people will have their say and 
then vote on this very important issue.
  The bill before us is a commonsense effort toward comprehensive 
background checks that will help save lives. I am very supportive of 
not only that provision but others that will be offered as well.
  One important piece that hasn't been in the headlines as much but is 
very important in getting it right is the need for better access to 
comprehensive mental health services. That is why we need the 
bipartisan Excellence in Mental Health Act passed as an amendment that 
will increase access to care and improve the quality of life for those 
who need it.
  We know that a person who does not receive treatment after his or her 
first psychotic episode is 15 times more likely to commit a violent 
act. But let me

[[Page S2634]]

be clear. We also know that the vast majority of those who are living 
with mental illnesses are more likely to be a victim of crime than to 
be a perpetrator of crime. But tragedies do happen when treatment and 
help are not available.
  In too many instances today we are seeing that there is not effective 
help available to people in communities. The current lack of access to 
mental health services means too often it is the local police who are 
responding to psychiatric emergencies, and they may not have services 
to which to take someone. These police officers are being diverted from 
what they should be doing--responding to other crimes--and so they take 
people to jail rather than have them get the services they need. They 
are spending resources incarcerating people who would otherwise need to 
be and should be in a treatment situation.
  That is why we have law enforcement supporting this amendment. We 
have over 50 organizations--from law enforcement and community mental 
health and health groups, as well as those who represent our brave 
veterans home from the war--supporting us because they know that if we 
don't have quality service in the community, we will continue to see 
people in jail who shouldn't be in jail, we will continue to see 
families and individuals not getting the help they need, and in some 
circumstances we will see more tragedies occur as well.
  Over the course of this week, we are going to hear a lot of debate 
about different aspects of gun safety. Colleagues are going to disagree 
about the manner of background checks or limits on assault weapons. But 
I hope there will be no disagreement that people with serious mental 
illnesses should be given effective treatment and that we can do a 
better job in our country to make sure treatment is readily available 
in a community setting. That should be the hopeful part of this whole 
debate.
  Science has shown us significant advances in the study of the brain 
and the most effective mental health treatments. There are solutions if 
people get the help they need. They can live healthy, productive lives 
rather than struggling with their illness. And I applaud President 
Obama's historic brain mapping initiative to expand that knowledge even 
more.
  It is amazing to me that we have so many studies relating to heart 
disease, kidney disease, or diabetes, and yet all of the issues 
relating to the brain--whether it is bipolar disorder or Alzheimer's or 
Parkinson's disease or schizophrenia--we have not tackled with the same 
vigor. There are solutions. We are finding those every day. There is 
hope. Today, thanks to cutting-edge research, we have answers for 
people living with severe mental illnesses. We have proven therapies, 
treatment options, and medicines that truly transform lives.
  I speak as someone who lived, as a daughter, through a time when we 
did not have appropriate treatments. When I was growing up, in middle 
school and high school, my father had bipolar disease. At that time we 
didn't know what it was. He was misdiagnosed for 10 years. At that time 
everybody was schizophrenic. There was no understanding that we 
actually have chemical imbalances in the brain, just as someone who 
isn't monitoring their sugar because they are diabetic might have. They 
need to monitor that in order to take medicine to keep them on an 
equilibrium so they do not get sick and have problems. We have the same 
thing with something called mood disorders in our country, and we have 
learned much about it. If someone is taking the right medicine, it 
stops the imbalance where they are either manic or severely depressed.
  There are solutions. When my dad was finally diagnosed correctly and 
received the help he needed and the medicine--at the time it was 
lithium--he went on to lead a very productive life for the rest of his 
days. So I have seen both what happens when people don't get treatment 
and when people do, and we literally have the opportunity to take this 
next step in order to make sure people all across our country get the 
help they need.
  Unfortunately, today one-third of all bipolar disorders do not get 
any treatment even when we know there are absolute answers for 
individuals and families. Shame on us for not making sure those are 
readily available. The amendment I will be offering would make sure 
those are available and close what I believe is the final step in what 
we have called mental health parity.

  We, as a group, on a bipartisan basis passed legislation authored by 
our dear departed Paul Wellstone and Senator Pete Domenici, with strong 
advocacy from Senator Ted Kennedy, to provide parity under health 
insurance between physical and mental health services. We passed that. 
We have now gone on to strengthen that with the new health reforms that 
are in place. The only place where we don't have mental health parity 
right now is in the community outside of the insurance system. We do 
not have the same parity between what we do through a community health 
clinic receiving reimbursement for preventive care for health services 
and what we do for behavioral health--mental health, substance abuse--
which is what we are going to fix with this amendment. We want to make 
sure we are focusing comprehensively in the community.
  As part of this, I also wish to talk about another tragedy facing our 
country; that is, the loss of so many of our heroes from Iraq and 
Afghanistan. This is a very important part of this story and part of 
what our amendment will address in a very positive way. Men and women 
who survive the horrors of war are ending up taking their own lives 
when they come home. Twenty-two veterans a day commit suicide, 22 a day 
today, yesterday, and tomorrow. They and their families, all those in 
that situation, need to know there is help available for them. That is 
why we have very strong support from veterans, the Iraq and Afghanistan 
veterans organizations, which were very pleased to have stood with us 
last week when we did a press conference with veterans to focus on this 
important part of the puzzle.
  We know that one in four veterans coming home needs some kind of 
mental health support, so we want to make sure that if they are in a 
rural community in northern Michigan and it is 3 or 4 hours to drive to 
the VA, they instead could receive some help in their own community--
working with the VA but receiving help in their own community--and that 
is what this does. We want to make sure that our veterans are fully 
receiving the services promised them and that comprehensive health care 
will be available to them when they come home.
  I would like to share just one story from our press conference.
  Jennifer Crane joined us. She is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. 
This October will mark 10 years since she returned home, but she says, 
``The experiences live inside of me like it was yesterday.'' She 
suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. She couldn't sleep. She 
self-medicated and ended up homeless and in trouble with law 
enforcement. But when she got the help she needed at a community mental 
health center, it transformed her life. She met the man who would 
become her husband. She is now going to have a baby and now works with 
Give an Hour, which is a wonderful organization that helps veterans get 
the mental health services they need, and they are strongly supporting 
what we are doing as well.
  Jennifer could have ended up a statistic, but she got the help she 
needed. We need to give every one of our heroes coming home from war 
the same opportunity. That is why the Excellence in Mental Health Act 
is so important as a part of all of this effort.
  We have come a long way, in a bipartisan way, to recognize the need 
for mental health treatment. As I mentioned before, the wonderful 
partnership of Senators Domenici, Wellstone, and Kennedy paved the way 
for us to more fully understand that when we talk about comprehensive 
health services, we shouldn't stop at the neck--from the neck down, one 
set of rules; from the neck up, another set of rules--that, in fact, we 
are talking about comprehensive care. We need to make sure we lose that 
stigma and focus instead on what we can do to help people receive the 
services they need. This amendment takes those efforts across the 
finish line by expanding access to community mental health services.
  I knew there would be a lot of controversial debate, but I hope in 
the end we will be able to come together, as we have on this amendment. 
I am very appreciative of the bipartisan support. I

[[Page S2635]]

want to thank Senator Roy Blunt again on our Excellence in Mental 
Health Act, as well as Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Susan Collins, 
Senator Lisa Murkowski, and others who have expressed their support as 
well. This is an opportunity for us to come together, as we have in the 
past, and do the right thing for millions of families dealing with 
mental illnesses that are treatable. The good news is there is hope 
now. There are actually answers now to so many mental illnesses. By 
passing our bipartisan Excellence in Mental Health Act we can prevent 
tragedies from happening in families all over our country.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, first, I commend and thank my 
colleague from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, for her leadership on an 
issue that is among the paramount questions for our time: whether we 
will meet our obligation to regard mental illness on a par with 
physical illness, a cause that has occupied me for a long time. So I 
want to thank the Senator from Michigan for spearheading this 
initiative, which is a vital part of the effort to stop gun violence in 
our country and, in fact, make our country healthy in so many ways. I 
am proud to join her as a cosponsor and a supporter of these efforts.
  I come to the floor today to continue the debate on the gun violence 
initiatives which are central to making America safer and making our 
country stronger. This bill is a comprehensive set of provisions that 
will hopefully be further strengthened by an amendment to be offered 
this week. We are on the cusp of voting on that amendment, the work 
done by Senators Toomey and Manchin, our colleagues, to reach a 
reasonable compromise. It is indeed a sensible, commonsense compromise 
that I am proud to support that will guarantee a criminal background 
check system to keep firearms and weapons of war out of the hands of 
people who are dangerous, people who should not have guns, criminals, 
mentally ill, seriously mentally problem-stricken, and of course 
others, such as domestic abusers.
  For too long, criminal individuals and organizations have prospered 
from illegally distributing weapons and firearms. So the bill in its 
second title takes a great step toward barring illegal trafficking and 
to also ban straw purchases.
  Too often given short shrift or little attention is the third title 
which speaks to school safety, and that is the measure that brings me 
here today.
  School safety is not an afterthought. It is central to stopping gun 
violence. The tragic lessons we have learned from Sandy Hook include 
not only the courage of the educators, those brave teachers and 
administrators and school psychologists, who literally threw themselves 
at bullets and cradled the loved ones of families who lost their lives, 
cradled children in their care as they were met by a hail of gunfire--
that teaching moment should not only inspire us but obligate us to do 
more about school safety.
  That is why I have gone to the schools of Connecticut, most recently 
on a tour that I conducted to ten schools around the State, to learn 
from our educators what they think those lessons are from Sandy Hook 
and where they think the priorities should be in terms of school 
safety. That experience provided me with some pillars of a program that 
I believe is important and is embodied in the act that is before us: 
the School and Campus Safety Enhancement Act. I want to thank Senator 
Boxer for her leadership on it which reauthorizes in effect the Secure 
Our Schools Program, which has been very productive and unfortunately 
was not reauthorized when it expired.
  These measures and the pillars of this program can be summarized very 
simply:
  First, decisions should be made locally about what best fits the 
community. Those decisions ought to be made by school districts and 
their boards, parents, teachers, administrators--all who are involved 
and have the knowledge and expertise and commitment locally, and 
Washington should not impose its judgment on those communities with a 
one-size-fits-all set of policies.
  Second, school safety ideally should involve a partnership between 
educators and law enforcement. In many of the schools I visited, I saw 
the value of school resource officers. More importantly, educators 
pointed out to me the value of their partnership with local law 
enforcement through school resource officers who acted not only as 
security personnel but also as mentors, counselors, and role models, 
preventing crime, not just stopping it in progress or apprehending 
criminals afterwards.
  Third, schools must be open, supportive, nurturing environments. They 
cannot be prisons. They cannot be transformed into permanent lockdown. 
We must commit ourselves to the freedoms and liberties that are 
embodied in our schools and the educative atmosphere that is so 
priceless and essential to real education. We cannot solve this problem 
by simply having more guns in schools, or arming teachers or 
administrators. Trained school resource officers or others provided 
with law enforcement support have to be part of a nurturing and open 
environment.
  The act that is before us today embodied in title III is important to 
move forward school safety, and to embolden, encourage, enable, and 
empower local decisionmaking.
  Today, I want to provide a very short report to my colleagues on what 
I have learned in my tour; and I encourage my colleagues to do the same 
around their States because it is genuinely a learning experience. The 
teaching moment of this tour changed my perspective on school safety, 
and certainly reinvigorated my appreciation for what happens in the 
classrooms and schools of our country with the leadership of our 
teachers and administrators. We owe them a great debt of gratitude.
  The issue of safe and secure schools certainly raised its head last 
week in the town of Greenwich, CT, when reports of a gunman put 
Greenwich High School in a lockdown. Thankfully, the suspect was 
apprehended, unarmed, with no casualties. The fact that a lockdown was 
even necessary underscores that we have made great strides; but our 
young people will not be safe in schools unless we know all of the 
best practices and implement them. This threat proved empty, but it 
offered a learning experience in terms of the training, the locking and 
unlocking procedures for school doors, the types of issues that can be 
addressed through better and more regular coordination with local 
police and others who can provide that kind of guidance.

  Over the past 3 weeks, the schools I visited were large and small, in 
widely varying parts of our State: Manchester High School, Kelly Middle 
School in Norwich, Middletown's Snow Elementary School, New Britain 
High School, West Bristol K-8 School, the Gilbert School in Winsted's 
High School, Northwestern Region 7 High School, Waterbury's West Side 
Middle School, Ross Woodward Magnet School, and Shelton Intermediate 
School. In every one of them, I saw different ways of dealing with 
school safety, and also aspiration for even better procedures and 
equipment--locks, lighting, alarms, cameras--but also training for 
teachers, and more school resource officers. I believe one of the most 
important pillars of this program has to be Federal resources that meet 
those local needs without imposing a one-size-fits-all policy. These 
schools are in widely different areas in terms of geography and 
demographics, the size of the communities they serve, the size of the 
schools, the qualifications of their staff and their training. That is 
why this program has to be individualized in terms of how it meets 
these needs and, again, empower and enable local decisionmaking.
  The Secure Our Schools grant program has impacted Connecticut very 
positively. The program has a direct and tangible impact on schools in 
Stamford, for example, where the problem of gang violence was 
addressed, and in other schools around the State such as Hartford, 
where the grant was used for the purchase of an outdoor intercom 
station, as well as locks and card readers to control access to school.
  The Secure Our Schools Program was a success story, and this act now 
will not only reauthorize but strengthen the Secure Our Schools 
Program.
  To give some examples: In Manchester, the swipe card entry program 
not only provides for better security

[[Page S2636]]

but better attendance tracking. The Illing Middle School in Manchester 
is considering that system, but the installation costs run about 
$50,000--a small price to pay for greater security that the card system 
provides. In general, I found security was not only cost effective, it 
was minimal in its cost compared to many other programs we are 
potentially taking to improve school safety.
  When I went to see Kelly Middle School in Norwich, I had to buzz in 
on an intercom and announce myself. That was true of many other schools 
as well. A Senate pin may allow us access to the floor of the Senate 
without passing through security, but it doesn't get you into Kelly 
Middle School, nor should it. They have a simple, practical system. If 
you are visiting during school hours, you buzz in and announce 
yourself, and then they decide whether that individual can enter 
through another set of locked doors. The double locks are a system that 
some schools are considering implementing. It is a sensible policy that 
is enabled by an intercom system and a camera--again, minimal in cost 
compared to many other infrastructure programs we may be considering 
this year.
  In Middletown, I visited Snow Elementary School. Principal James 
Gaudreau demonstrated how their doors are locked. When a person is 
buzzed in, video cameras record and archive who is entering. Some 
schools have archiving systems, others do not. Law enforcement knows 
that archiving is important. As Chief William McKenna and Mayor Dan 
Drew told me, these systems are planning that was undertaken even 
before Sandy Hook. School systems, boards, administrators, and teachers 
were aware of security before Sandy Hook, but their awareness has been 
enhanced and they are planning to devote additional resources to this 
issue. Both Mayor Drew and Chief McKenna extolled the virtues of the 
three school resource officers, and they are looking for additional 
resources to create afterschool programs and other measures to enhance 
that partnership and cooperation between police and students, and 
teachers, educators, and law enforcement can collaborate.
  Visiting New Britain was very important on this tour.
  When I went to New Britain High School with Mayor Tim O'Brien and 
school superintendent Kelt Cooper, I saw there the requirement that any 
visitor is automatically run through a database check--the sex offender 
database check. Using the driver's license they were able to run that 
kind of check virtually instantaneously. They also have, in that single 
high school, 150 cameras to know what is going on in that school minute 
to minute and with direct links to the police headquarters so that any 
kind of emergency is immediately apparent to law enforcement. The 
school is going to install discrete panic buttons, allowing for rapid 
alerts to be sent to law enforcement, a belt-and-suspenders approach 
that many schools are implementing.
  At Sandy Hook we know that Adam Lanza ended his massacre and took his 
own life when law enforcement arrived. So the presence of law 
enforcement can often have a powerful deterrent effect. The knowledge 
that apprehension will be swift, that killing will be stopped, is a 
huge deterrent.
  At West Bristol K-8 School, Tim Callahan, who is the school project 
manager there, pointed out to me how a parent dropoff was configured 
with visual straight lines. Again, design and architecture is important 
to security so that out in the parking areas there are virtually no 
blind spots. They have integrated security features into this building 
while it was constructed. West Bristol also requires visitors to buzz 
in through the main office when they go through the main building. With 
grant funds made available under this legislation, this school could 
install locks on a second set of doors, slowing down potential 
intruders. We know in these dangerous emergency situations that time is 
critical. Slowing down a killer, stopping an invader at a second locked 
door, can gain time for law enforcement to respond and save lives.
  Adam Lanza killed 26 people, 20 beautiful children and 6 great 
educators, in 5 minutes with 154 bullets. If he had been stopped 
earlier, if a second set of doors had alerted police, if a buzzer had 
been available of the most immediate kind available elsewhere, the 
consequences might have been different. There were alerts to the 
police. They responded virtually immediately. Their response was heroic 
and profoundly significant to saving even more lives. But we know that 
time is of the essence in these situations and that is why double 
locks, buzzer systems, identification, additional checks--all can be 
important.
  The chief operating officer in New Haven Public Schools, Will Clark, 
told me about that kind of buzzer system there and in Winsted. School 
officials, including the regional school district school 
superintendent, Judith Palmer, and the high school principal, Candy 
Perez, are working hard to improve its security system. But 
infrastructure there, as they told me, is a continuing challenge. 
Winsted Board of Education member, Mimi Valyo, told me, ``We do not 
even have wifi.''
  In 2013 we are in a wireless age, and the next generation of security 
systems may rely on Wi-Fi or smartphones. We need to make sure schools 
like Winsted have the resources they need to address the security needs 
of the 21st century with the technology of the 21st century. School 
security is too important to be allowed to lag.
  I thank all of the educators who educated me, who shared with me 
their stories of progress, their goals for the future, their hopes that 
we can improve our schools and make them safer. If we make our schools 
safe, we make our children safer, and we make America safer. I am 
hopeful--more optimistic than ever in light of the vote we took last 
week--that we are making progress and that we will have positive votes 
in the days ahead, votes that fully fulfill our obligation to stop the 
plague of gun violence.
  Again, I thank my colleagues for their courageous votes last week and 
urge them to move forward this week in the same way.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, last week Senator Toomey, my dear friend 
from Pennsylvania, and I introduced this important piece of bipartisan 
legislation with our colleagues Senator Kirk and Senator Schumer. It is 
called the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act 
because that is what it does.
  This bill protects the safety of the public and our constitutional 
right to bear arms. Since we introduced the bill, there has been a lot 
of misinformation about this legislation. I wish to set the record 
straight with hard facts about our proposal and what it will do and 
what it will not do.
  I think people need to understand how guns first get into their life, 
which is through a commercial sale of some sort. We are not talking 
about creating any new laws; we are making the laws we have uniform.
  First of all, today we have on the books FFL--Federal firearms 
licensed--dealers, and there are approximately 55,000 throughout the 
United States of America. We all have one close to us in our 
neighborhood. These are friends of mine and people I know. If a person 
goes to a licensed dealer today and purchases a gun, they are required 
to do a criminal background check. The background check is basically to 
see if that person is able to have a gun. That licensed dealer puts 
that record of the background check they did, and only he or she, as a 
licensed dealer, can keep it.
  It is against the law to form some type of registry. The paranoia of 
those who say someone will know where my guns are and people can take 
them away cannot happen. In our bill, we double down to make sure it 
doesn't happen by making it a felony with a 15-year imprisonment, so 
that myth is gone.
  The second way to buy a gun is at a gun show. If a person goes to a 
gun show and that same FFL dealer--if that person went to their store, 
he or she would go through a background

[[Page S2637]]

check. If a person goes to a gun show and buys from a dealer there, he 
or she would still have to go through a background check under current 
law. If that person goes to the next table, he or she can buy whatever 
they want and nobody is checking, and that is what we are going to 
stop.
  Let's say I want to buy a gun through the Internet from Senator 
Toomey in Pennsylvania and I am in West Virginia. I see he has a gun 
for sale, and I want to buy that gun. As the law is stated today, as 
far as buying interstate--from West Virginia to Pennsylvania--Mr. 
Toomey would have to send that firearm to a licensed dealer in West 
Virginia, and I would have to have a background check done before I can 
take possession of that gun.
  We are not creating new law. All we are saying is if a person goes to 
a gun show, there will be a background check for all guns that are sold 
at the gun show. If a person buys through the Internet, there will be a 
background check whether it is instate or out of State. This is not a 
universal background check. This is basically a criminal and mental 
background check and that criminal and mental background check has to 
show that person has been found guilty by a court that he or she is a 
criminal or criminally insane and not allowed to buy a gun and that is 
all.
  So what everybody is hearing with all this talk is just falsehood. If 
a person is a law-abiding, proud gun owner, such as myself, and likes 
shooting and going out in the woods with friends and family, we do not 
infringe in any way, shape or form on individual transfer.
  For those transactions which are not commercial transactions--for 
example, in West Virginia usually your grandfather or uncle or somebody 
gets you your first gun. There are some people who never bought a gun 
but have a collection of guns that was handed down to them by their 
family. Those people will still be able to have that type of 
transaction. That is not interfered with. A person can sell a gun to 
their neighbor without any interference. A person can put a note on the 
bulletin board in their church and say: I have a gun I would like to 
sell and sell it to a church member.
  So if anyone says we are infringing on somebody's right, we are not. 
As we worked on the bill, we basically looked at the gun culture in 
America, who we are, how we become who we are, and that is what we took 
into consideration.
  I, for one, as a gun owner and a person who enjoys hunting and 
shooting and all the things and camaraderie which that brings, I feel 
sometimes I am looked upon in an objectionable way because I enjoy 
that. I am a law-abiding citizen and my second amendment right gives me 
that right. I want to make sure that right is protected. I also have a 
responsibility to do the right thing, and that is why we are here.
  If we are looking for ways to keep our citizens safe from mass 
violence, then shouldn't we look at the culture of mass violence? I 
have gone around to the schools in West Virginia and talked to some of 
the students.
  We can talk to our young pages, the brightest and best of what we 
have. They have probably become desensitized compared to what the 
Presiding Officer and I would have seen in our generation. If we saw 
what they do in a movie--and we didn't have the Internet back then, so 
we didn't have anything to compare to it.

  If we are going to talk about banning somebody's weapon, such as a 
hand-me-down gun, if you will, don't you think we ought to have people 
with expertise who can tell what the gun does to make sure it isn't 
just something that might look fancy but doesn't perform any better 
than a deer rifle? The Commission on Mass Violence is part of this 
bill. Basically, we are going to have people who have gun expertise, 
people who have mental illness expertise.
  I have gone to the schools and talked to teachers in kindergarten, 
first grade, and second grade. They are saying: Wait a minute. We have 
no help. We have identified kids who are challenged mentally or come 
from a home that is unstable and not getting proper support, and we 
have nothing to do to help them. As a society, I believe we have a 
responsibility, so we are going to have that Commission with guns and 
mental illness expertise.
  How about school safety expertise? We had the horrific situation in 
Newtown. That gentleman got in that school, not because he had a key or 
because the door was unlocked, he got in that school because he was 
able to shoot the glass out of the front door and stick his arm in, hit 
the safety bar and let himself in.
  I have been a Governor for 6 years in the State of West Virginia. We 
built a lot of schools, and we remodeled a lot of schools. Not once did 
an architect come to me and say: Governor, if we are going to build 
these schools, we need all these safety devices so a person cannot get 
into the school.
  They told me about the lockdown for each room so a person would need 
to have a safety code to get into a room. Not one time was I told we 
should have bulletproof glass on every first floor window. Not one time 
was that ever brought up to me. We need people who have school safety 
expertise.
  There is video violence. Talk to the children and youth of today. If 
you have not gotten on the Internet lately and flipped to video 
violence, you should do it. It will amaze you. What you see will 
absolutely scare you. They are exposed to horrific things, which I can 
never imagine from my childhood. Don't you think we should have the 
people who are the first defenders of the first amendment come and talk 
to us about how we can change the culture of violence in our society? 
That is what we are talking about.
  I have heard a lot of my colleagues on different talk shows saying 
they didn't like this or we should be doing that. My good friend 
Senator Pat Toomey and I are going to go through this bill and explain 
what it does and what it doesn't do and how we can move the ball 
forward by keeping society safe, treating law-abiding gun owners with 
the respect they should have and make sure criminals or the mentally 
insane who have been found to be so by court cannot buy a gun.
  So if someone is a law-abiding gun owner, they are going to like this 
bill. If someone is a believer in the second amendment right of 
Americans to bear arms, they are going to like this bill. If someone is 
a defender of the rights of our military veterans, they are definitely 
going to like this bill. If someone is looking for ways to keep our 
citizens safe from mass violence, especially our precious children, 
they are going to like this bill. For those criminals or persons who 
have been declared mentally insane by the courts, they are not going to 
like this bill, and that is exactly what we have tried to do.
  I want to go through much of this, but I want to give my friend 
Senator Pat Toomey an opportunity. I appreciate his input so much. We 
are sister States, West Virginia and Pennsylvania--especially western 
Pennsylvania. My family and I grew up in Farmington and Fairmont and 
northern West Virginia, which is an hour and a half below Pennsylvania. 
We have the same slangs and sayings. We say ``you'ns'' instead of you 
all or you. Pat and I understand each other.
  I would like Senator Toomey to explain the part that is so near and 
dear to him as well as to me.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

                          ____________________