[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 160 (Thursday, October 5, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6333-S6334]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Las Vegas Mass Shooting
Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, last weekend a man camped out on the 32nd
floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. He stockpiled 23 weapons
and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He set up bipods and scopes. He
brought a hammer to knock out the window. Then, on Sunday, he opened
fire. He kept firing for 15 minutes, stopping only to reload and switch
weapons. Over 15 minutes, he murdered 58 Americans and injured more
than 500.
The day after the shooting, I was in Washington. I had seven or eight
meetings, and not a single person in those meetings brought up the
worst shooting in modern American history--not one.
I am not sure if it was two mass shootings ago or three when we
started to accept this as a normal condition of American life, when we
lost our belief that it was within our power to protect our fellow
Americans at a country music concert or at a nightclub or at a movie
theater or at a school.
I know there are strong beliefs about guns in America--principled
beliefs--but there are also steps that the overwhelming majority of
Americans want us to take. There are 90 percent of Americans who think
we need background checks for every gun sale, including 74 percent of
NRA members. There are 89 percent of Americans who think we should
prevent the mentally ill from purchasing guns. There are 82 percent of
Republicans who want us to bar gun purchases for people on the no-fly
or terrorist watch list. Yet Congress has done nothing to respond to
the American people. We did nothing after Aurora, after Newtown, after
Orlando--nothing.
Unlike Washington, in Colorado, after the two mass shootings in
Aurora and at Columbine, our legislators rose to the occasion and made
tough choices after we suffered two of the worst mass shootings in our
Nation's history. After the massacre at Columbine, we closed the gun
show loophole. After the tragedy in Aurora, we strengthened our
background checks in a Western State. Last year, those background
checks blocked 8,704 people from buying guns. That may sound like a
lot, but 380,000 people applied for guns in Colorado last year. That
means just 2 percent of those folks who applied were blocked and that
98 percent were able to buy guns without a problem.
Who were the 2 percent whom Colorado is blocking but whom this
Congress fails to block? Among them were murderers and rapists and
kidnappers and domestic abusers.
No one could come to this floor and tell me Colorado is worse off
because we have kept guns out of the hands of those people. The average
wait time for those background checks is 12 minutes. That strikes me as
a fair tradeoff to keep guns out of the hands of murderers and
kidnappers and rapists. Yet here in Washington, despite now an annual
tragedy--tragedy after tragedy--Congress has done nothing. We haven't
even done the simple things like close the gun show loophole or stop
people on the terrorist watch list from buying weapons.
This is not about taking guns away from people who have them. It is
about keeping guns out of the hands of people who nearly everybody
agrees should not have them. It is about stopping more people like the
Las Vegas killer from modifying his rifles to become almost fully
automatic and far more deadly. I cosponsored a bill this week to ban
those modifications, and I am encouraged that some of my Republican
colleagues seem to be open to that idea.
I know we cannot stop every madman or every random act of violence in
this country--we cannot--just as we cannot stop every murder from
happening, but that does not mean we should not make them less likely
or that we cannot take steps to limit their harm, steps that are backed
by the overwhelming majority of Americans and that are fully consistent
with the Constitution.
I remember, after the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub, I was supposed
to take my daughter to camp that day.
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She was going to be away from us for a month. I can remember I did
everything I could to keep her from hearing the news that day, as the
numbers of fatalities increased during the course of the day, because I
didn't want her to leave us--she was about 12 at the time--with a sense
of fear, the fear I felt and the country felt. I am so sorry my
children and America's children have to grow up in a country where mass
shootings are common, where we are beginning to see them just as part
of our lives.
I heard somebody the other day on television say that is the price of
freedom. What a shame that somebody would say that in the United States
of America. What a surrender that represents to our children and to the
victims of these crimes. I didn't grow up in that America, but
conditions have changed. We have let it happen. The result is, we now
have an entire generation of Americans--of our countrymen, our sons,
and our daughters--who are growing up with a reasonable fear that they
could be victims of a mass shooting or that their moms or their dads
might not come home one day.
I think our kids have enough to worry about. They have every right to
see a movie with their parents, to go dancing with their friends, or to
see a concert on their one night off without having the fear of being
shot down by people who have no business carrying such powerful
weapons. They have a right to expect that this Congress will finally do
something about gun violence in our country--violence which is far
greater than anywhere else in the industrialized world.
In the wake of these horrific acts, as always, Americans spring into
action. First responders secure the area and care for the wounded.
Neighbors hold vigils to honor the victims and support grieving
families. Journalists shed light on what happened and why. Citizens
speak out to demand action from their elected officials. They are doing
their jobs, and it is time for Congress to do ours.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). The Senator from West Virginia.