[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 84 (Monday, June 2, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3331-S3333]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              Gun Violence

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I come to the floor tonight heartbroken at 
the loss of 6 young people and the injuries to 13 more after a 
devastating gun violence tragedy that occurred on May 23 in the Isla 
Vista community near Santa Barbara.
  As a mother, grandmother, and Senator representing the most 
unbelievable State in the Union, this latest mass shooting shook me to 
the core. I was struck by this simple fact: No one is safe in America 
anymore. No one is safe in America anymore--not in their schools, not 
in a movie theater, not in their workplace, not in their home, and not 
on a beautiful college campus overlooking the Pacific Ocean where the 
victims of this latest horrific attack were busy pursuing their dreams.
  I am going to show the faces of the students we lost. Christopher 
Ross Michaels-Martinez, 20 years old, from Los Osos/Oceano, CA. He was 
an English major who served as a resident adviser in a campus dorm 
while maintaining a 4.0 GPA. He was planning to study abroad in London 
next year, and he dreamed of going to law school like both of his 
parents. His cousin Jaime described Chris as ``smart, gentle, and 
kind,'' but with a competitive spirit he showed on the basketball 
court. His high school basketball coach said, ``he was a coach's dream. 
He was a team player, he had a great attitude and he was a hard worker 
who would stay after practice and work on his shots.''
  His father Richard said:

       Chris was a really good kid. Ask anyone who knew him. His 
     death has left our family lost and broken.

  Veronika Elizabeth Weiss, 19, from Thousand Oaks. She loved sports 
and

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high school. She played on four teams. She started playing softball at 
the age of 6, and later turned to baseball and was the only girl out of 
500 players in the Westlake Baseball League. She was a good student who 
earned straight A's in high school and graduated with a 4.3 GPA. She 
was majoring in pre-financial mathematics and statistics. Her father 
said: ``She wanted to be a financial wizard, and use her high aptitude 
with complicated math.'' She was a member of the Tri-Delta Sorority, 
just like her mom and grandmother, and now she is gone.
  One of her friends said: ``Veronika was one of the people you knew 
you wanted to be friends with. She is willing to become friends with 
anyone and everyone. She is the one person who can make you smile 
instantly.''
  Then there is Katherine ``Katie'' Breann Cooper, 22, of Chino Hills, 
CA. She was close to her two brothers, and she was weeks away from 
graduating with a degree in art history. Her friends remember her as 
fun and outgoing, someone who had ``a very bright smile that lit up a 
whole room.'' And we can see the smile.
  In the words of one family friend, Katie was the ``kind of girl that 
brought sunshine on an overcast day.'' She loved soccer and running 
track and helped her family deliver Christmas gifts to her neighbors in 
Chino Hills every year.
  She was also a member of Tri Delta, a ballroom dance teaching 
assistant, and raised money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital in 
Memphis. Her friends said she was ``involved in everything'' and 
``never slowed down.''
  ``She was a self-proclaimed princess and I love her for that,'' her 
friend Courtney said. ``And I know she has a crown on her head today.''
  Cheng Yuan ``James'' Hong, 20, San Jose, CA. He was a fourth-year 
computer engineering major who spent his time volunteering as a teacher 
assistant at Rainbow Chinese School in Cupertino. He friends described 
him as a hard-working and bright student who was always willing to help 
others.
  His high school drama teacher in San Jose remembered him as a quiet 
student who was happy to work backstage to ensure that his classmates 
could shine.
  One of his former classmates said that he was ``one of the kindest, 
most genuine people I have ever met . . . He was never afraid that his 
unrelenting kindness might have led to him being taken advantage of. He 
helped out everybody he knew, myself included, and never asked for 
anything in return. He was good for the sake of being good, and it is 
incredibly rare to find people that genuine.''
  Then there is George Chen, 19, from San Jose. He graduated from high 
school in San Jose and had just finished his second year at UC-Santa 
Barbara where he studied computer science. His father is a software 
engineer, and George wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps. He liked 
swimming and hiking and was close to his younger brother, who is 10 
years old, despite their age difference. They would play video games 
together and laugh. Friends described George as a ``gentle soul'' who 
had a fondness for working with children.
  When he went home to visit his parents during breaks from school, his 
mother said he would always go out of his way to pick up his elderly 
neighbor's mail and take out their trash. He volunteered for the 
Buddhist charity group Tzu Chi and as a camp counselor at the YMCA. And 
he is gone.
  Then there is Weihan ``David'' Wang from Fremont, CA, 20 years old. 
His mother described her son as ``a very, very nice boy,'' the kind who 
aced his SATs but never bragged about it. He was an avid basketball 
fan. He played on his high school team in Fremont, and was a big fan of 
the Los Angeles Lakers.
  At UC-Santa Barbara, he studied computer engineering and wanted to 
start a business with his friends. One friend described David as 
``warm-hearted and helpful.'' His parents said that David was ``gentle, 
kind, loving, joyful, peaceful, faithful, and self-controlled.'' He was 
supposed to return home for the summer break soon to go on a trip with 
his family to Yellowstone National Park.
  I say to all families who can hear me: Imagine what that does to a 
mother and father--to a family. David was their only child. His mother 
said, ``He was always the joy of the family,'' and now he is gone.
  These were all bright and talented people who were full of promise 
and passion. Their dreams and futures were extinguished in an instant 
of chaos.
  Today I join their families, friends, and classmates in mourning 
their unfathomable loss. Not only that, I stand with them in staunch 
determination to do everything in my power to stop this senseless 
violence.
  Richard Martinez, the dad of Christopher, said it best. He said he 
does not want or care about sympathy from politicians. He said to us: 
``Get to work and do something.''
  The parents of James Hong said the same thing in a letter: ``I know 
there has been a great injustice, and policy can be improved.'' They 
added that their son ``can't be here to help anymore, but you can.''
  The mother of George Chen said: ``This is not the first time it 
happens, a killing spree, but I hope it's the last one. No parent 
should have to go through this.''
  And the parents of David Wang wrote: ``It's time to stop gun 
violence, and be free from fear.'' They are absolutely right. We must 
act. We cannot sit back and simply accept that nearly 90 Americans are 
killed every day--and 30,000 are killed every year--from gun violence.
  I well remember the Vietnam War because I got involved in politics to 
try and stop it. It was horrible. We lost more than 50,000 people over 
10 years, and we ended that war.
  Mr. President, 30,000 are killed every year from gun violence. When 
are we going to end the war here at home? We cannot accept that every 
day an average of 8 children and teens under the age of 20 are killed 
by guns. We cannot accept the fact that children in the United States 
die by guns 11 times as often as children in other high-income nations. 
It is an outrage, and it has to end.
  We often see the same reaction after mass shootings like this. Some 
will insist it was just ``the act of a mad man'' and there is nothing 
you can do to stop a deranged person from going on a rampage. You know 
what? History says that defeatist attitude is wrong.
  Take Australia. In April 1996, a young man killed 35 people and 
wounded 23 others with a semiautomatic rifle in the so-called Port 
Arthur massacre, the worst mass shooting in Australian history.
  Less than 2 weeks later, the conservative-led national government 
pushed through fundamental changes to the country's gun laws. 
Australia's conservative government passed laws that all but prohibited 
automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles, stiffened licensing and 
ownership rules, and instituted a temporary gun buyback program that 
took some 650,000 assault weapons out of public circulation. The law 
then required licensees to demonstrate a ``genuine need'' for a 
particular type of gun and take a firearm safety course. Those actions 
by Australia's leaders made a difference. In the decade before Port 
Arthur, Australia saw 11 mass shootings. Since then, there has not been 
a single mass shooting, and the gun murder rate has continued to 
steadily decline.
  In 2011, Australia had 0.86 gun deaths for each 100,000 people--or 25 
people. That year the United States had 10.3 gun deaths per 100,000 
people, or 11,101 Americans. Accounting for the population differences, 
this is insanity.
  Australia said enough is enough. When are we going to do that?
  Canadians said enough is enough. In December 1989, a disgruntled 
student walked into a Montreal engineering school with a semiautomatic 
and killed 14 students and injured over a dozen others. That tragedy 
prompted the leaders in Canada to ban more than half of all registered 
guns, require all gun owners to be at least 18, and obtain a license. 
You need a license for a car. Why don't you need a license, public 
safety course, and a background check for a gun? That is what they did.
  Canadians said enough is enough, and it paid off. Canada's gun murder 
rate has declined since passage of these laws, with occasional spikes 
in gun violence.
  In 2009, Canada had 0.5 deaths per 100,000 from gun murders--173 
people. The United States had 3 gun murders for every 100,000 that 
year--that is

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11,493 Americans. Come on--173 out of 100,000 compared to 11,493 people 
out of 100,000? What is wrong with the people here in this country and 
in this body?
  The United Kingdom experienced tragedies that led their leaders to 
act. In August of 1987, a lone gunman armed with two legally-owned 
semi-automatic rifles and a handgun went on a 6-hour shooting 
spree roughly 70 miles west of London, killing 16 people and then 
himself. Britain expanded the list of banned weapons, including certain 
semi-automatic rifles. They increased registration requirements for 
other weapons. Since then, they have banned all handguns, with a few 
exceptions. The government instituted a buyback program which many 
credit for taking tens of thousands of illegal or unwanted guns out of 
supply. Their actions paid off. The UK's gun murder rate since passage 
of these laws is now less than half of what it used to be.

  In 2011 the UK had 0.23 gun deaths per 100,000 people, a fraction of 
the 10.3 gun deaths per 100,000 in the United States that year. They 
had 38 gun murders; we had 11,101. What is going on? We have to do some 
of this here. What are we so scared of?
  I said when I started this speech that no one is safe in America 
because we don't take commonsense steps. I am not saying we ban guns or 
we ban people from having guns--no--but that we have a system where 
they have to show they need it. We can do the same things here in 
America. We can start. How about this: Pass measures that have nearly 
unanimous support among the American people, wherever they live in our 
great Nation. Take background checks. Ninety percent of Americans say 
they support background checks. Because one gun lobby doesn't like it, 
we turn our backs on 90 percent of the people. What is wrong with us?
  We have legislation to expand background checks. It has bipartisan 
support. We should take it up and pass it and do the work of the 
people, 90 percent of whom want us to pass background checks.
  Assault weapons. Most Americans support banning military-style 
assault weapons: 81 percent of voters, 71 percent of gun owners, and 60 
percent of NRA members. We should pass Senator Feinstein's legislation 
now and do the work the American people want us to do.
  How about high-capacity magazine clips? Seventy-two percent of voters 
say we should ban the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines.
  Mental health. Lawmakers on both sides support taking action. Let's 
do it now.
  School safety. I authored a bill with Senator Collins to provide the 
resources needed to make schools safer. Take it up and pass it, and 
don't load it up with controversy. Pass the things we need to pass. Do 
it for these families and for God knows all the others who are 
suffering and crying themselves to sleep every single night, bearing a 
loss that will never go away.
  Here is the situation. In this particular case, we had the family of 
the gunman who committed the massacre call the police and say: We are 
very worried about our son. It is haunting to me that they had a 
feeling about it and they called the police. The police went to 
interview this troubled young man, and they couldn't see through his 
problems. They didn't check the gun database we have in California. If 
they had, they would have seen that he had purchased guns. If they knew 
that, we would have been in a different circumstance.
  So we are introducing legislation called the Pause for Safety Act. 
This is what it does. No. 1, families and others who are very close to 
the suspected unstable individual can go to court and seek a gun 
violence prevention order to temporarily stop someone who poses a 
danger to themselves or others from purchasing a firearm. They can go 
to court and seek a gun violence prevention order. Let's say it is a 
group of coworkers who see that this person is threatening or he has 
written something. They can actually make the case before a judge and 
get an order, so the person cannot buy guns.
  No. 2, it would help ensure that families and others close to the 
individual can also seek a gun violence prevention warrant which would 
allow law enforcement to take temporary possession of firearms that 
already have been purchased. If those police officers had known this 
individual had bought those weapons--because we do have that database--
they could have gone and gotten the warrant. But under our bill, a 
family member could do this. They could go to court and seek that gun 
violence prevention warrant.
  No. 3, if law enforcement gets a tip or a warning or a request from a 
family member, they can then make full use of a gun registry if it 
exists in their state. It is very important for law enforcement to make 
use of the gun registry if it exists.
  I am very pleased that similar legislation has been introduced in 
California by Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, Assemblyman Das Williams, as 
well as State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson.
  We all remember the shock and outrage we felt after the Sandy Hook 
shooting in Newtown, CT, where a gunman shot 20--babies, I call them--
children--schoolchildren and 6 adult staff members. All of those lives 
lost, and we said we would take action. We wore ribbons and we came to 
the floor and we cried. Well, since that shooting, more than 28,000 
Americans have died from gun violence--90 people every day. Imagine, if 
it was anything else that caused the death of 28,000 Americans, we 
would be on the Senate floor.
  The shooting at Sandy Hook and the shooting at UC Santa Barbara are a 
reminder that we have failed our children. Call it what you want. We 
are failing our children. We have a basic task to keep our children 
safe. They look to us, and they believe we will protect them. We have a 
function here, which is to not allow someone who is unstable and 
violent to get a weapon. So we need to pull together, and we need to 
show our children we love them, not by making fancy speeches but by 
doing the right thing, such as this father said we have to do, Chris's 
dad. Don't tell me how you love children; don't talk to me about how 
bad you feel. Do something.
  Children need to know they are safe in school. People need to know 
they are safe at work. People need to feel safe in a restaurant--
anyplace. Let us honor these victims of gun violence by working to end 
this epidemic. We look at these faces, we look at their eyes, and we 
know they were just at the start of their adventures, at the height of 
their productivity, in their twenties.
  We have to do something so this doesn't happen again and again and 
again.