[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 181 (Tuesday, November 7, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7046-S7049]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Gun Violence

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to call 
attention to the tragedies that have been caused by gun violence across 
our country, including the most recent attack, which left at least 26 
dead after a lone gunman opened fire at a church in Texas on Sunday. I 
join my colleagues in mourning for the victims and their families. Our 
thoughts are with them and all those affected by what happened in 
Texas.
  At the same time, we remember that these heartbreaking events came 
just 35 days after the deadliest mass shooting in our Nation's history, 
when 58 were killed and hundreds were wounded in Las Vegas last month. 
But as we look ahead, we cannot escape the fact that we can, and must, 
do more to keep our communities safer. While no one policy will prevent 
every tragedy, we need to come together on commonsense proposals that 
would save lives.
  I appreciate the words of my colleagues about mental illness and 
funding for mental illness. I think that is very important. I come from 
Minnesota, where Paul Wellstone was one of the leaders in making sure 
that mental illnesses got covered by insurance, and I think we need to 
do that and more.
  Another area where we have found some consensus in this Chamber is 
improving background checks. My colleagues Senator Manchin and Senator 
Toomey have made that clear, and I supported their background check 
legislation in 2013. But the fact remains that we didn't pass that bill 
in the Senate. We fell short, and it was a disheartening day.
  I remember having the parents of some of the Sandy Hook victims in my 
office that morning. Yet what happened that day--you have to contrast 
it with where the American people are. Consistently, whether it is with 
public opinion polls or whether it is when you talk to people you meet 
when you are at home, we have seen that Americans from across the 
political spectrum support commonsense proposals to require background 
checks, such as requiring background checks at gun shows. And they 
support that by wide margins.
  By the way, I look at this from a State that has a lot of households 
that have guns. We are a proud hunting State. And with every proposal I 
look at, I always think of my Uncle Dick and how he used to love 
hunting and sitting in his deer stand. I think: Does this hurt my Uncle 
Dick and his deer stand? And I don't think that the Manchin-Toomey bill 
would in any way. When I look at these things, I have to evaluate them 
that way because I know how many proud and law-abiding gun owners we 
have in our State. But I don't see that closing this gun show loophole 
by doing something more about background checks would hurt that hunting 
tradition in any way.
  When I talk to law enforcement around Minnesota, they stress the 
importance of having effective background checks to stop felons, 
domestic abusers, and people who are prohibited from having easy access 
to guns from having that access. If you remember, part of the Manchin-
Toomey proposal was to do more on sharing data and getting the data out 
there. These efforts should not and do not have to infringe on 
Americans' rights to own guns.
  Another sensible measure that came out of the tragedy in Las Vegas, 
which

[[Page S7047]]

we should take action on, is Senator Feinstein's legislation to close a 
loophole that allows bump stock devices to convert semiautomatic 
firearms into weapons that work like fully automatic guns. Law 
enforcement recovered 12 of these devices from the hotel room of the 
shooter in Las Vegas last month.
  I hope we can find some common ground. Some of our colleagues across 
the aisle have voiced some interest in this, and I hope we can do 
something when we know that would have been helpful in that shooting.
  Another area where we can find common ground is in taking action to 
protect those who are at risk of gun violence from domestic abusers. We 
were reminded of how important this is again this week, as reports have 
revealed that the gunman in the Texas shooting had a history of 
domestic violence, having been court-martialed for assaulting his wife 
and child in 2012. He was sentenced to 12 months of confinement and 
received a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force. There are also 
reports of ex-girlfriends and others who reported similar conduct.
  I am sure the facts will be unveiled, but what I do know, regardless 
of what the facts show right now, is that this connection between 
domestic violence, stalking--those kinds of activities--and some kind 
of homicidal behavior is something that has been well established. 
According to recent research, more than half of mass shootings between 
2009 and 2016--that is 54 percent--involved some kind of domestic or 
family violence.
  Before I came to the Senate, I spent 8 years as the top prosecutor 
for Minnesota's largest county, so I have seen that connection. And I 
have seen the connection between a history of domestic violence or 
stalking that later leads to a more serious crime. That is why it is so 
important that we have protection orders, and that is why it is so 
important--as I look at the record of the shooter--that these cases be 
taken seriously, so you actually get that misdemeanor conviction on the 
record or you actually get a felony conviction or you do something 
about the stalking behavior when it is reported to law enforcement.

  When I was the county attorney in Hennepin County, we would have 
cases we would sometimes pursue when a victim had reported it and the 
police had gathered evidence--even if the victim later backed away and 
was afraid to testify--because we knew it had happened, we had the 
original testimony, and we had the evidence at the scene. We trained 
the police on getting the evidence at the scene so that we were able to 
actually make those cases. And you think about, in that instant, making 
those cases; no matter how hard it can be sometimes when you have a 
scared victim, it is really important.
  When I was in the county attorney's office, I made prosecuting felons 
in possession of firearms one of my top priorities. They weren't 
supposed to have guns, and when they did have guns, we had to take it 
seriously. I will tell you, some of the most disturbing cases that we 
saw involved people with a documented history of harassment--of 
stalking, of domestic violence--because you would see it building and 
building, and sometimes it would be against one victim, but often we 
would find out that there were others and that it was a pattern of 
behavior, and one horrible case would erupt into homicidal violence.
  There was one case I had heard of where a woman was shot to death by 
her boyfriend. He killed her and then killed himself while both of his 
kids were still in the house. It was ultimately his 12-year-old 
daughter who went to the neighbors for help. The worst part of the 
story is that it could have been prevented. In the 2 years leading up 
to the murder-suicide, the police had been called to the boyfriend's 
residence at least five times to resolve domestic disputes. Yet somehow 
the man, with a history of violence like this, was able to have a gun 
in his hand on the day he killed his girlfriend.
  I wish I could say that it was a rare tragedy, but the truth is, 
studies have shown that more than three women per day lose their lives 
at the hands of their partners, and over half--this is an average--of 
the women murdered by intimate partners in the country are killed with 
guns. Many times these tragedies begin with incidents of stalking.
  Research has shown that one in six women has experienced stalking 
sometime during her lifetime, and 76 percent of women murdered by 
intimate partners were first stalked by their partner. It is for this 
reason that a number of years ago I introduced a bill called the 
Protecting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act to close some of 
these loopholes in our existing laws. My bill would make sure that 
those who are convicted of misdemeanor crimes of stalking are not able 
to buy guns. It would also expand the definition of a domestic abuser 
to include dating partners. The second part--when we had a hearing on 
this bill on these issues in the Judiciary Committee, even the 
Republican witnesses who were called supported the dating partner idea 
because so many States have started to do that.
  I introduced the legislation this time. It has been bipartisan in the 
past, but the Republican Senator on the bill is no longer in the 
Senate, although it is bipartisan in the House. But this time I 
introduced it with Senator Hirono and Senator Feinstein, the only other 
two women on the Judiciary Committee of 20 members. Congresswoman 
Debbie Dingell from Michigan is leading the same bill in the House, and 
her bill, as I noted, is bipartisan.
  In 2014, we had a hearing on my bill. As I said, even the Republican 
witnesses agreed that a major portion of the bill was a good idea. At 
that hearing, we heard from Sheriff Christopher Schmaling of Racine 
County in Wisconsin. He testified about the connection between stalking 
and guns being used in violence against women. In his testimony, he 
told the story of one woman from Wisconsin who, he said, had changed 
his career. This woman had endured 3 years of a violently abusive 
marriage before divorcing her husband. She then took out multiple 
restraining orders against him over several years. That horrible day in 
2004, he threatened her with a handgun, beat her with a baseball bat, 
bound and gagged her, and left her in a storage unit to die. Through 
what he described as some good breaks and some great luck, the Sheriff 
and his partner rescued Teri before she died. As a result of the 
ordeal, she had a miscarriage and had to have her toes surgically 
removed. In his testimony, the Sheriff talked about the importance of 
my bill's provision to extend the protections in current law to include 
dating partners so that abusers would not be able to buy a gun if they 
are convicted of beating up their girlfriend or boyfriend, regardless 
of whether they lived together or had a child.
  As the sheriff said, ``Dangerous boyfriends can be just as scary as 
dangerous husbands; they hit just as hard, and they fire their guns 
with the same deadly force.''
  This is a simple point that you would think we could all agree on. 
Sadly, we still have not been able to pass this bill.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the sheriff's written 
testimony be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:


written testimony of sheriff christopher schmaling--judiciary committee 
hearing: ``vawa next steps: protecting women from gun violence''--july 
                                30, 2014

       Chairman Whitehouse, Senator Grassley, Senator Leahy, 
     members of the Committee, thank you for hosting this hearing 
     today, and thank you for the opportunity to testify.
       My name is Christopher Schmaling. I am the sheriff of 
     Racine County, Wisconsin and have been a law enforcement 
     officer for 19 years. I am a conservative Republican, and I'm 
     here today to ask you to pass two laws that will protect our 
     sisters, our mothers, and our daughters by keeping guns out 
     of the hands of domestic abusers. The first bill is the 
     Protecting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act of 
     2013, which will block abusive boyfriends and convicted 
     stalkers from possessing guns. The second is a bill that 
     would require criminal background checks for gun sales by 
     unlicensed sellers.
       More than half of the women murdered each year are killed 
     by intimate partners or family members. That's 48 women 
     killed by husbands and boyfriends each and every month. We 
     know that people with a history of committing domestic 
     violence are more likely to become killers--and we know the 
     role that firearms play: When a gun is present in a domestic 
     violence incident, the chances that a woman will be killed 
     increase by 500 percent.

[[Page S7048]]

       These numbers are tragic. As the top law enforcement 
     officer in Racine County and over my two decades on the 
     force, I've seen far too many of these tragic incidents 
     firsthand.
       I want to tell you about one such domestic violence 
     incident, a tragedy that changed my career. In 2004, Teri 
     Jendusa-Nicolai was violently abused and left for dead by her 
     ex-husband. Teri had endured three years of a violently 
     abusive marriage before divorcing him, and had then taken out 
     multiple restraining orders against him over several years.
       That horrible day in 2004, he threatened her with a .38 
     caliber handgun, beat her with a baseball bat, bound and 
     gagged her, and left her in a storage unit to die. My partner 
     and I were the lead investigators on the case, and through 
     some good breaks and some great luck, we rescued Teri before 
     she died. As a result of the ordeal, Teri had a miscarriage 
     and had to have her toes surgically removed.
       Teri is one of the most wonderful people I've ever known, 
     and has been a tremendous advocate for victims of abuse in 
     the decade since she was nearly killed at gunpoint. We've 
     become very close since then, and my eyes have been opened to 
     the reality of domestic violence and gun violence. I've also 
     become close with Elvin Daniel, who is sitting here beside me 
     today, and have been moved by his sister Zina's story.
       I'm proud to say we are the first county in the State of 
     Wisconsin to have a full-time domestic violence specialist. 
     We work closely with victims to figure out how best to 
     protect them. We've made this very intimate and very deadly 
     area a top priority for our department. So much of the crime 
     we face in Racine County is intimate partner abuse, and any 
     cop will tell you that domestic violence calls are the most 
     dangerous calls. The last thing a victim needs, and the last 
     thing my officers need, is for these dangerous abusers to be 
     armed with illegal guns.
       We respond to domestic violence incidents differently than 
     other calls, because these are ``heightened risk'' calls--we 
     send more officers, we go ahead and assume that guns will be 
     involved, because they are so often involved. Abusers 
     routinely threaten to shoot my deputies and I upon arrival at 
     domestic violence calls. In fact, according to FBI data, over 
     150 law enforcement officers have been killed in action while 
     responding to domestic disturbances.
       I'm proud to have worked on a great domestic violence bill 
     in Wisconsin in 2014 known as ``The Safe Act,'' a bill that 
     ensures guns are kept out of the hands of domestic abusers. 
     This bill was passed by a bipartisan majority and signed by 
     our Republican governor Scott Walker. This year alone, 
     similar bills were passed with bipartisan support in New 
     Hampshire, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington. And in 
     Louisiana, where another Republican governor--Bobby Jindal--
     signed the bill into law.
       The first bill I'm asking you to pass today is the 
     Protecting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act of 
     2013, S. 1290, introduced by Senator Klobuchar. This bill 
     would close a loophole that allows abusive dating partners to 
     buy and have guns--simply because they are not married to 
     their victims. And it would also block people with stalking 
     convictions from having guns.
       Why is this bill so important? I can tell you firsthand 
     that domestic violence is horrific, whether or not the abuser 
     and victim are married. When we send our police into danger 
     to respond to domestic violence calls, we send the same folks 
     regardless of the couple's marital status. Dangerous 
     boyfriends can be just as scary as dangerous husbands; they 
     hit just as hard and they fire their guns with the same 
     deadly force. In fact, according to FBI data, more women are 
     killed in America by their abusive boyfriends than by their 
     abusive husbands.
       This past March, just a couple hours from Racine County, 
     Cheryl Gilberg was killed by her ex-boyfriend in a domestic 
     dispute. The killer apparently shot Cheryl with her own gun, 
     after a struggle. According to news reports, she had been 
     seeking a restraining order at the time of the killing. But 
     in cases like Cheryl's, a restraining order isn't good 
     enough. If you've never been married to your abuser, federal 
     law likely will not stop him from buying a gun.
       If Congress passes this bill, federal law will be catching 
     up with the states. Among the 22 states that prohibit gun 
     possession by domestic abusers subject to restraining orders, 
     19 of those states already include abusive dating partners. 
     And 42 of our states have recognized that dating partner 
     abuse is a form of domestic abuse by allowing victims to take 
     out domestic violence restraining orders against their 
     boyfriends.
       The second bill I'm asking you to pass today would require 
     criminal background checks for gun buyers who shop with 
     unlicensed sellers. Current federal law prohibits many 
     abusers from buying guns, but only requires them to pass a 
     background check if they buy a gun from a licensed dealer. 
     This is a gaping hole in the law: It means a convicted wife-
     beater can slip through the cracks and get a gun simply by 
     finding a seller who does not have his own gun store.
       This is exactly what happened in Dane County: Tyrone Adair 
     was a domestic abuser who had been convicted of battery 
     twice, and was legally prohibited from owning a gun because 
     of a restraining order. So instead of going to a gun store--
     where he would have had to pass a background check--he found 
     an ad for a 9mm Glock in a local paper, and met the seller at 
     a hardware store. There was no background check, though the 
     seller did ask, and I quote, ``You're not going to go out and 
     kill someone, are you?'' Tyrone Adair used that gun on a 
     horrific murder spree, killing his two daughters--ages 1 and 
     2--and killing their two mothers.
       Background checks work. Sixteen states and DC already 
     require background checks for all handgun sales, and about 40 
     percent fewer women are shot to death by their husbands and 
     boyfriends in those states. And background checks save law 
     enforcement lives as well: about 40 percent fewer cops are 
     killed with handguns in those states, as well.
       These are the cops that risk their lives when they respond 
     to domestic violence calls, rushing into the middle of very 
     dangerous and very intimate situations. We see the terror 
     that abusers can create when they are armed. We see the 
     impact on their wives and girlfriends, and on their children. 
     We're major proponents of community policing in Racine 
     County, and if I have my officers on the street, working 
     closely with our residents, I want to know that our laws are 
     doing everything they can to keep guns out of abusive hands.
       So I'm here to speak for victims of abuse and to speak for 
     my cops. I've made it a priority to talk to victims. I've 
     seen the escalation over the years, from yelling, to battery, 
     to homicide. When an abuser has a gun, the victims say to me, 
     ``Sheriff, is not a question of if he'll use the gun to abuse 
     me; it's a question of when.'' And I recognize the value of 
     preventing even one gun from winding up in the hands of an 
     abuser: one gun may translate into one more lives saved.
       So today, I'm asking you to pass S. 1290, which will apply 
     the same rules to all abusers, regardless of whether they are 
     married to their victims or not--and will prohibit convicted 
     stalkers from having guns.
       And I'm asking you to require criminal background checks 
     for gun sales by unlicensed sellers, and ensure that abusers 
     don't get a free pass when they buy guns from them--often 
     strangers they meet online, at gun shows, or through 
     classified ads. The bipartisan bill introduced last year by 
     Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey would do just that, and 
     it has already received the support of 55 senators.
       I'm asking you today to stand up against abuse by fixing 
     our out-of-date laws and passing this common-sense 
     legislation. Thank you for your time and I look forward to 
     answering your questions.

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I also note that a justice from the Supreme Court of 
Pennsylvania also testified on that day as the Republicans' witness. 
Even though he did not agree with everything in the bill, he also said: 
I absolutely agree that we should have boyfriends, dating partners as a 
part. We have it in Pennsylvania, OK? It is important. As the sheriff 
said, they can shoot, and they can beat up people just like anybody 
else.
  He was, actually, the Republicans' witness at the hearing. That is 
why I am happy that in the House of Representatives it is a bipartisan 
bill, but I would like to see it as a bipartisan bill here in the 
Senate. Maybe they will reconsider this now. Just as the NRA has said 
that it was looking at the bump stock issue, maybe they would be 
willing to look at this issue because they wrote kind of a fast memo on 
this--it is only a page long--back when we had the hearing and when we 
were gaining support for the bill. Remember that this is very narrow 
legislation that is focused on making sure that dating partners are 
covered and also people who are not charged but convicted of stalking. 
They wrote that the legislation ``manipulates emotionally compelling 
issues such as `domestic violence' and `stalking' simply to cast as 
wide a net as possible. . . .''
  I want to make this very clear--and I have never addressed this on 
the floor before--that this was really focused narrowly so that we 
could gain Republican support. I didn't really think the NRA would 
support it, but I thought that maybe they would be neutral, and, sure 
enough, their witnesses at the hearing supported it. We have had 
Republican Senators support it in the past, and we have also had 
Republican House Members support it. In going after the bill by saying 
that it manipulates emotionally compelling issues, well, I would agree 
in that I am sure that a lot of people shed tears when watching what 
happened in Texas, and I am sure that they have shed a lot of tears 
when they have heard the stories from people in their own communities 
of the victims, of the women who had died at the hands of domestic 
abusers after years of abuse. So if they want to call that emotionally 
compelling and manipulative, that is up to them, but I call it the 
truth.
  The other thing they said about this bill--and this was even more 
interesting--is the part about the stalking,

[[Page S7049]]

which is a major part of the legislation as well. That part of the 
bill, as I mentioned, just takes what we know as a signal for trouble 
in the future and violence in the future, and you would actually have 
to be convicted of stalking to have the gun protections apply.
  The example they used--as I said, it did not make any sense to 
include this, and it is the only example they used--was of two men of 
equal size, strength, and domestic status, joined by a civil union or 
merely engaged or formally engaged in an intimate social relationship, 
being subject to this prohibition for conviction of simple assault 
arising from a single shoving match.
  Actually, this part applies to the domestic partners. I think they 
are really taking this in a way that has surprised me since whom we are 
talking about are boyfriends and girlfriends and domestic violence, but 
they have changed it into a shoving match in a bar with people who 
might have some kind of social relationship. I just do not think this 
is a valid reason for my Republican colleagues to oppose this bill, and 
I am going to keep bringing this up because it does not make sense to 
me.
  They end by saying that, whatever the case may have been 30 years 
ago, domestic violence is now taken seriously by the legal and criminal 
justice systems.
  That was the reason they gave for opposing the bill. Really? Look at 
what we just found that happened in the last week when this was not 
just a minor example of domestic assault but was a felony. The person 
was court-martialed, and the person was, basically, detained for a 
year. Yet, somehow, this was not taken seriously enough through our 
entire system to show up on a record check. How about all of the 
reports that had been made by previous girlfriends and other people 
about his behavior, and nothing had seemed to come up then?
  As I mentioned, of the many cases that we had had in our office, even 
when the victim had gotten scared and decided that she had not wanted 
to pursue anything, we had felt that we had an obligation to her and to 
the other women we knew would come after her to pursue those cases, 
and, many times, we had done that if the police had been trained and 
they had been able to get the evidence at the scene. Sometimes there 
had been child witnesses and others, and we had been able to pursue 
those cases and win them, and we did.
  So to say that you don't want to support my bill because you think 
this system is so great, is working so well, and is being taken 
seriously by the legal and criminal justice systems after you saw what 
just happened in Texas, I do not think is true. This memo was written 2 
years ago. So I hope they will look at this again and consider 
supporting my bill.
  I conclude my remarks by sharing another story about yet another 
tragic shooting from my State. In this one I truly got to know the 
widow. She is the widow of a police officer in Lake City, MN. This was 
a case in which the officer, who was a wonderful man in a small town 
police department, responded to a domestic violence call from a 17-
year-old girl who was being abused by her ex-boyfriend. He went to the 
scene in the middle of the winter. He had a bulletproof vest on and 
everything because the domestic violence cases can be much more 
dangerous than people think, and officers know this. He was shot in the 
head, and he was killed. The 17-year-old girl lived. This officer 
literally gave his life to save another.
  There was a big funeral, and there were law enforcement people there 
from all over our State. I will never forget that funeral. I was 
sitting there in the aisle, and I had learned that the last time that 
officer had been in that church was to see his own kids--three young 
children, two boys and a girl--in a Nativity play. He had been sitting 
right in the front row of that same church, so proud of them at 
Christmas. Shortly after that, he was shot. At his funeral, there were 
those three children walking down the church aisle--the two young boys 
and the little girl in a blue dress that was covered with stars. I 
always think about that little girl in that blue dress that was covered 
in stars. This was domestic violence gone bad. He was a police officer 
who had shown up at the scene.
  When you look at these cases--we can look at the numbers; we can look 
at the stories; we can look at what has gone on on TV--you see this 
connection between domestic violence and stalking and then, later, 
either mass shootings or violence against one person, which happens 
much more often. It is not a coincidence. It is something that has been 
well documented.
  As we extend our sympathies and prayers to all of those who were 
affected by that tragedy in Texas and, of course, not too long ago in 
Las Vegas and in so many other communities and to all of those, of 
course, who were also victims of that act of terror in New York--we 
think of all of them--we also think: What can we do to make this 
better? In this case, when it comes to domestic violence and this 
specific issue that I know a lot about from my past job, we can do 
something. So let's pass this bill.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Strange). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.