[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 99 (Tuesday, June 21, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4375-S4377]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN VIOLENCE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the whole world knows that on June 12, a 
gunman shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in the worst mass 
shooting in modern American history, but what they may not know is, 
there has been at least 10 other mass shooting incidents in America 
since Orlando. By mass shootings, I mean incidents where at least four 
people were injured or killed by gunfire.
  Two of those mass shootings were in Chicago, in my home State of 
Illinois. On June 13, five men were shot in the East Garfield Park 
neighborhood, and on June 18, four people were shot in the middle of 
the afternoon in the South Shore neighborhood. Fortunately, none of the 
victims in these two Chicago mass shootings were fatally wounded, but 
since the Orlando shooting, there have been many other gunshot victims 
in Chicago who have lost their lives.
  Last Friday, Yvonne Nelson, a city worker, was shot and killed 
walking out of a coffee shop on the South Side in the middle of the 
afternoon. The shooter was aiming for someone else in an apparent gang 
dispute, but Ms. Nelson was shot in the chest and killed. She was 49 
years old, a member of the New Life Covenant Church, and beloved by 
friends and family. She was described as a beautiful person, hard-
working, loving, kind. She was taken from us last Friday.
  Last Thursday, Denzel Thornton, who worked for the Chicago Public 
School System, was shot and killed outside the entrance of McNair 
Elementary School in the South Austin neighborhood shortly after noon. 
He was 25 years old, a graduate of DePaul University, and aspired to be 
a chef. He was a promising young man with a bright future ahead of him. 
He was taken from us in the middle of the day as the elementary school 
children looked on.
  This past weekend, 13 people were shot and killed in Chicago, and at 
least 41 others were injured by gunfire. The youngest shooting victim 
was only 3 years old.
  So far this year, over 1,700 men, women, and children have been 
wounded or killed by gunfire in the city of Chicago. I will keep the 
victims and their families and loved ones in my thoughts and prayers, 
but thoughts and prayers are not enough. As lawmakers, it is our 
responsibility to do everything in our power to protect the people we 
represent and to stop the killing in the neighborhoods of America.
  Last Friday, I visited the city of Chicago and went to several 
different spots to get a perspective on this gun violence and killing. 
I met for an hour with the superintendent of police, Eddie Johnson. He 
has 28 years on the Chicago police force. This is man who started as a 
patrolman. He understands the violence on the streets. We talked about 
so many different things.
  They have identified 1,300 who they suspect are most likely to be 
shooters or victims. By and large, these are men with a history of gun 
violence. Over the Memorial Day weekend, approximately 66 people were 
shot in the city of Chicago, and 80 percent of them came from the list. 
So we have a finite list of suspects whose names pop up more often than 
not when it comes to this gun violence. We talked about ways to address 
it, and there are many people thinking about how to deal with it in the 
right way, in a constitutional way but with a specific strategy to end 
this gun violence.
  The superintendent told me a story. He said: You know, after you have 
been a cop in Chicago for a while, you get pretty tough. There aren't 
many things that make you emotional, but I do remember when there was a 
shooting in a home and a grandmother was killed and a toddler next to 
her was killed. We arrested the 15-year-old.
  The superintendent said: I looked in his eyes, and I said: What were 
you thinking to spray that gun into that home and killing that 
grandmother and that toddler, and he said that young man looked him in 
the eye and said: They shouldn't have been there. They should have 
known better.
  The superintendent said: I was crushed with that comment.
  I talked to him about a visit I made to the juvenile facility about 6 
weeks ago in Chicago to meet some of the young people who were waiting 
to stand trial. They had been charged with adult crimes. They are in 
the juvenile facility being held until the date of the trial. Some of 
them wait 1 year to 2 years. They take on a life in this juvenile 
center. There is a high school, a gym, activities, and there is also 
counseling. For many of these young people, this is the first time ever 
that someone with professional credentials sat down with them and tried 
to figure out what was going on in their minds and why they would 
commit these crimes of violence.
  Afterward, I asked one of the counselors: What kind of mental 
condition do you find in these young people who are engaged in this 
random violence? He said they find everything--a spectrum of mental 
illness, from bipolar to schizophrenia, to acute depression, and on and 
on and on--but he said there is one recurring finding: 92 percent of 
these juveniles have a recurring issue. I asked: What is it? He said 
that 92 percent of them have either been the victims of or witnessed 
violent trauma.
  When we think about PTSD--men and women who take on the uniform of 
the United States and go off to war and who either hurt themselves or 
witness violence that occurs on the battlefield--and they come home 
troubled and needing counseling and help. By and large, these folks are 
over the age of 18, but now we are talking about teenagers and 
adolescents having gone through the same or similar experience with 
violence. What impact does that have on the human mind of an 
adolescent? Are we dealing with some form of post-traumatic stress 
disorder that makes them so hardened and callused that they don't even 
appreciate the violence of their own lives and their own acts? I think 
that is a very real concern.
  Let me quickly interject that struggling with mental illness does not 
mean you are going to be a violent criminal at all. It is more likely 
that you are going to be the victim of a crime with your mental illness 
or mental condition, but we have to take an honest look at this aspect 
of what we are dealing with when it comes to violence.

  Friday night, I went to visit a friend--a controversial friend, to 
some a radical Catholic priest in Chicago but from where I am standing, 
the man who has given his life to a neighborhood who desperately needs 
it. His name is Mike Pfleger, and he is a Catholic priest at St. Sabina 
in Chicago. He had a peace march on Friday night. Father Mike brought 
out 400 people--300 African American and 100 White and Hispanic. We had 
a rally and at that rally mothers stood up and read the names of those 
under the age of 20 who have been killed this year in the city of 
Chicago. They read 150 names ranging from 20 years of age to zero, 
babies who were shot and killed.
  There were a lot of tears that night over the losses, and a reminder 
that the statistics we read every single day in a newspaper are real 
human lives causing real human pain and suffering to the families who 
survive. Then, Father Mike rallied everybody and took them out on a 
march through the neighborhood there, trying to reclaim one of the 
toughest, most challenging areas in the city of Chicago.
  So what are we going to do about it--the U.S. Senate right here in 
Washington, DC? Last night, it was a disappointment.
  Many of us took to the floor to join Senator Murphy last week in his 
filibuster. He was the leader, and I give him the credit for his steely 
determination to stand here--literally, stand here for, I believe, 15 
hours in a filibuster--to force the votes we had last night. Senator 
McConnell, the Republican leader, agreed to have those votes, and after 
they were finished, all four amendments were defeated. I am sure many 
people across the country said: What a waste of time that the Senate 
would acknowledge the problem, yet not find a solution to move forward. 
Well, I would add quickly that we haven't given up and we shouldn't. 
Senator Susan Collins of Maine is working on an amendment right now 
relative to the question of whether a

[[Page S4376]]

suspected terrorist should be able to buy firearms in America. I think 
that is a pretty clear question and answer. Most Americans, 90 percent, 
say for goodness' sake, stop suspected terrorists from getting their 
hands on weapons. Yet the Senate defeated Senator Feinstein's effort 
last night to do just that. I voted for it, but it didn't get the 60 
votes needed.
  Senator Collins has picked up the banner, and she is trying to put 
together a bipartisan measure. We haven't seen it in its entirety, but 
I encourage her, and I have tried by working with her to plug in some 
of the gaps and answer some of the questions about her approach. I hope 
she is successful, and I hope a bipartisan measure emerges from the 
Senate and puts pressure on the House of Representatives. There is 
absolutely no excuse for us not doing everything in our power to keep 
semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of suspected terrorists, 
convicted felons, and those who suffer from serious mental instability.
  How deadly are these weapons? There is something called Snapchat, 
which I am not an expert on by any means, but it is a video that lasts 
about 10 seconds. One of the victims at Pulse nightclub in Orlando 
turned on her Snapchat video as the firing started, and in the span of 
9 seconds, you can count 17 rounds that were fired into the crowd, one 
of which killed the woman who was taking the video. That is the kind of 
weapon this crazed man was able to buy and take into a nightclub and 
kill 49 innocent people and injure more than 50.
  Why would we make that easy for someone who is a suspected terrorist? 
Does that really reflect what we feel in America? I don't think so. 
Ninety percent of Americans think we should do just the opposite and 
stop these suspected terrorists from having easy access.
  There was an amendment offered yesterday by Senator Cornyn of Texas, 
supported by the National Rifle Association. It did not pass. I voted 
against it. It was not a valid approach to dealing with this issue 
because Senator Cornyn required, if a suspected terrorist was going to 
buy a firearm, that the burden was on the U.S. Government to go to 
court if they challenged their being on the terrorist list. The burden 
was on the government, within 72 hours, to come up with a lawsuit, a 
criminal action, to stop the person from buying a firearm. If the same 
person wanted to get on an airplane in the State of Texas and was on a 
no-fly list, they wouldn't get on the airplane. It wouldn't be a 
question of the government going to court to prove it. For the safety 
of the other passengers, we would keep the suspected terrorist off the 
airplane. Why not when it comes to semi-automatic weapons? Shouldn't 
the burden at least be in favor of security and safety for the people 
of the United States?
  That is still an issue for us to resolve. Is Congress doing all it 
can to stop the daily toll of gun violence and the involvement of guns 
with suspected terrorists? Not even close. So many shootings are 
preventable. They never would have happened if our laws did a better 
job keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people. But too many 
Members of Congress are too afraid to stand up to the gun lobby. They 
are afraid to vote for commonsense reforms, supported by 90 percent of 
the American people, for fear that the NRA will come after them in the 
next election.
  Remember, the gun lobby fights laws that make it harder for them to 
sell guns. First and foremost, they are not constitutional scholars. 
They are sellers of firearms, and they want to sell increasingly large 
volumes of their product so they make more profits. The National Rifle 
Association and gun lobby groups are constantly working to weaken laws 
on the books and prevent any new laws that might prevent gun sales. As 
a result, we have a ludicrous set of loopholes in our laws that allows 
criminals, the mentally ill, and even suspected terrorists to buy guns. 
We can't let this continue. As lawmakers, we have a responsibility to 
protect Americans from gun violence. After last night's votes, it is 
clear we haven't done our job.
  Last week, the American Medical Association declared in an official 
statement that gun violence in America is ``a public health crisis 
requiring a comprehensive public health response and solution.'' This 
was the first such declaration that has been made by our Nation's 
largest medical association, and I commend the AMA for their 
leadership.
  The numbers behind their decision are staggering. Every year, almost 
32,000 Americans are killed with guns. On an average day in America, 
297 Americans are shot, and 91 of those shootings are fatal. 
Communities across the Nation are affected by this violence. In cities 
like Chicago, the daily toll of these shootings is devastating.
  Last week, when I joined Senator Murphy and almost 40 other 
Democratic colleagues, we spoke out or tried to speak out to get the 
Senate to debate this issue--not just a quick driveby vote of four 
amendments, take it or leave it, but a meaningful debate with real 
alternatives brought to the floor. The filibuster lasted 15 hours and 
caught the attention of the Nation. Having been in this business for a 
while, I can tell whether our activities here are even noticed. They 
were. That filibuster was noticed. People came up to me and said: Thank 
goodness you are finally going to say something, do something, and vote 
on this issue of ending gun violence.
  Well, words are not enough, and the votes last night are not enough. 
We need to start with commonsense reform supported by the overwhelming 
majority of Americans. Keeping firearms out of the hands of suspected 
terrorists shouldn't even be debated; it is so obvious. We should 
prevent suspected terrorists from buying guns and make sure an FBI 
criminal background check is conducted every time a gun is sold.
  There is no excuse for what is going on now in Northern Indiana. Gun 
shows take place there regularly. Guns are sold in volume out of those 
gun shows with no background checks on the buyers. So the gangbangers 
of Chicago and the others head over to Northern Indiana--it is just 
across the border--fill up their trunks with guns and bring them into 
the city of Chicago.
  The police department in the city of Chicago has confiscated one 
crime gun per hour for every day this year, and we still have a huge 
backlog of guns that are floating through the community in the hands of 
those who have no business owning or using a gun. The Chicago Police 
Department is trying to keep up with this wave of firearms flooding our 
city. They have confiscated more guns than the cities of New York and 
Los Angeles combined, and they still can't keep up with it.
  There is no excuse for the gun show loophole. We should have serious, 
meaningful background checks of everyone purchasing firearms. The 
conscientious, self-respecting gun owners of America agree with this. 
They went through a background check to buy their guns. They think 
people should do that as well to avoid selling guns to the wrong 
people.
  We must never forget our obligation to do everything we can to keep 
America safe. Our first obligation is to provide for the common 
defense, promote the general welfare, and insure domestic tranquility 
in the United States. If that is our obligation, there is much more 
that needs to be done--keeping America safe from gun violence.
  Thousands of Americans are shot and killed each year in shootings 
that could have been prevented. There are steps we can take that are 
consistent with our Constitution. With our tradition of supporting 
hunting, sports shooting, guns for self-defense, we can still take 
meaningful steps to avoid tragic death, and we shouldn't be afraid to 
do that.
  I am not going to quit on this issue, and many of my colleagues will 
not either. I ask the American people, don't quit and don't get 
discouraged. Keep speaking out for commonsense reforms as the American 
Medical Association did last week. When people ask me what they can do, 
I say: In our democratic form of government, it is very basic. It is 
called an election. If this issue of gun safety means something to you, 
ask that Member of Congress or the congressional candidate, that 
Senator or the Senatorial candidate, where they stand. If it is 
important enough, make your vote follow the answer. Join us and stand 
together. We can beat back the gun lobby and start saving lives and 
protecting the innocent across America. We can do this, and we must.

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  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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