[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.

[[Page S6334]]

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.