[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 182 (Wednesday, November 8, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7078-S7079]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Texas Church Mass Shooting

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as the world now knows, there was a tragic 
shooting in Sutherland Springs, TX, last Sunday, which took the lives 
of 26 innocent people and injured 20 more. On Monday evening there was 
a prayer vigil for those victims. The community gathered to pray and to 
pay their respects to the deceased.
  There are two people in particular who were in attendance, whom I 
want to highlight: Stephen Willeford and Johnnie Langendorff. I 
mentioned them yesterday, and perhaps you have seen them on the news, 
but I have been thinking a lot about them lately. In addition to the 
tragedy, this was really one of the things that gives you a little hope 
amidst the terrible circumstances. Stephen, of course, is the man who 
responded to the shooter's rampage by grabbing his rifle and running 
toward the First Baptist Church. Johnnie drove the truck that chased 
the gunman down at high speed. In typical Texas fashion, these two 
gentlemen don't consider themselves to be heroes, but I consider them 
to be heroes. They said that they were just doing what needed to be 
done. Johnnie said it was an ``act now, ask questions later'' kind of 
deal.
  I think we in Washington should take more of our cues from people 
like Johnnie and Stephen. We should show courage, track down anything 
that is not right, and do our very best to fix it. In particular, 
Stephen Willeford--maybe you have to be a Texan or an Alaskan to really 
appreciate what he did. From what I have read, he was an NRA-certified 
shooting instructor. He apparently heard the shooting at the church, 
grabbed his gun and went there and, basically, ended up stopping the 
shooter from killing more people.
  The shooter apparently had accumulated enough ammunition to do a lot 
more damage than he did, but, thanks to the intervention of this 
concerned citizen, this person who was willing to put himself in harm's 
way actually shot the shooter and discouraged him from doing more. But 
for his actions, a lot more people would have died on that terrible, 
terrible Sunday.
  The police can't be everywhere all of the time. That is one reason 
why, in my State and around the country, we believe that citizens ought 
to be able to defend themselves under appropriate circumstances.
  We now know that the gunman was court-martialed by the Air Force and 
convicted of serious domestic abuse. Under current Federal law, this 
should have prohibited him from ever purchasing a firearm. The fact 
that it didn't means that we need to figure out why Federal law wasn't 
followed and make darn sure that the relevant information is always 
uploaded into the background check databases.
  There were multiple errors--human and systematic errors--that should 
have prevented this shooter from ever buying a firearm. He unlawfully 
purchased four firearms that he wasn't permitted to purchase. Federal 
background checks did not turn up his Air Force conviction for domestic 
violence, a felony, for fracturing the skull of his infant stepson. 
These convictions were not uploaded on the NICS Federal database.
  I plan to introduce legislation--and I have been talking to a number 
of colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are interested in 
providing a solution to this problem, but we are going to introduce 
legislation to ensure that all Federal departments and agencies, 
including the Department of Defense, upload the required conviction 
records. My legislation will also encourage to the greatest extent 
possible under the Constitution that State and local governments do the 
same.
  We all remember the terrible shooting that occurred at Virginia Tech 
a few years ago by a person who had already been adjudicated to be 
mentally ill by the State, but because the State did not upload that 
information into the Federal database when he went to buy a firearm, 
there was no hit, no disqualifier that appeared that would have 
prevented him from buying that

[[Page S7079]]

firearm in the first place. We need to make sure those systems work 
every time.
  What Sutherland Springs has exposed is that the Federal Government is 
failing to comply with reporting requirements. This is unacceptable, 
and it must change.
  Yesterday, Gen. David Goldfein, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, 
came by my office, and I am grateful to him for that. I told him that 
it must have been one of his worst days when he found out that the Air 
Force had failed to notify the Federal authorities of the information 
that would have disqualified this individual from buying a firearm. He 
appropriately expressed grave concern over the fact that the gunman's 
convictions were not sent to the NICS database. He pledged to get to 
the root of the problem, and I believe him.
  It is worth noting that we have tried to address similar problems 
before, and we can do it again. In 2015, I introduced a bill called the 
Mental Health and Safe Communities Act, which addressed a related 
issue, and that was the failure of State and local authorities to 
upload valuable mental health records into this same NICS database.
  I think there is a bipartisan willingness in this Chamber to work on 
problems inherent in the sharing of these records, and I hope my 
colleagues will join with me in supporting this new legislation once it 
is introduced. We are shooting for the first part of next week. We owe 
it to the men and women and the families of Sutherland Springs to make 
sure that our laws are enforced and that individuals like this shooter 
with a history of violence do not gain illegal access to firearms.