[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 35 (Tuesday, February 27, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1225-S1226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Gun Safety

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, a few years ago, an author named Malcolm 
Gladwell wrote a book titled ``The Tipping Point.'' He spelled out that 
in the course of history, when something occurs that changes people's 
thinking and actions, it is a precipitous moment where what has been 
done for so long stops, is reevaluated, and a different course is 
followed. The clear question we have in America today is whether we 
have reached a tipping point when it comes to gun violence.
  It has only been 13 days since the tragedy in Parkland, FL. Look at 
what has happened since. Of course there is outrage, sadness, and 
mourning for the families who lost these wonderful students, teachers, 
and administrators, but beyond that, these high school students--17, 18 
years old, some even younger--have become a national voice, a powerful 
voice on the issue of gun safety in schools.
  I often wondered when this moment might occur or whether it would 
occur. There has been such a long litany and string of mass shootings 
and massacres. It is sad to say that there was a numbness setting in. 
When terrible things occurred in places like Las Vegas, Texas, and 
other States, you wondered, is that the event? Will the killing of 
those innocent children in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut 
be the tipping point? Will America finally say ``enough''? It appears 
that on this day, 13 days after the tragedy in Florida, we are near or 
at a tipping point when it comes to gun safety.
  Some of it is very personal. Two weeks ago, after this occurred, my 
6-year-old granddaughter said to her mother that she had been warned in 
her first grade classroom that if a shooter should turn up at school 
firing a gun, first, she should stay away from the windows, and second, 
she should lie down on the floor. I can't tell you what a profound 
impact that had on me as a grandfather to think that my little first 
grader, this beautiful little girl, was worried about the moment when 
somebody would walk in her classroom and wantonly try to kill the 
students and teachers who are there.
  I cannot believe that any sane person believes that the Second 
Amendment to the Constitution--the right to bear arms--envisioned that 
possibility. I am sure it didn't. I am sure our Founding Fathers--and 
we can debate for the rest of the day what their words actually meant--
never envisioned that an American citizen's right to bear arms could 
somehow translate into violence against so many innocent people, as it 
has over and over again.
  Last week, I was in Chicago. I was joined at a press conference by 
gun safety advocates at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center on 
the South Side. We stood together, victims of gun violence and I, at a 
press conference. With me were advocates from Hadiya's Promise and the 
Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, who have been working 
together for years to combat the scourge gun violence in Illinois. I 
also stood with Patrick Korellis, who was wounded on February 14 10 
years ago at a mass school shooting at Northern Illinois University in 
DeKalb, IL.
  A new voice came to join us, a graduate from Marjory Stoneman Douglas 
High School in Parkland, FL, named Francyn Brown. She graduated from 
Stoneman Douglas in 2009. She is currently a law student at the 
Chicago-Kent College of Law. She is one of dozens of Stoneman Douglas 
graduates in the Chicago area--which include, incidentally, the first 
baseman for the Chicago Cubs, Anthony Rizzo--and hundreds, if not 
thousands, nationwide who joined together in the aftermath of the 
February 14 mass shooting that killed 14 Stoneman Douglas students and 
3 staff. These young men and women have come together to speak up and 
urge their lawmakers to do something about the Nation's epidemic of gun 
violence. The message is starting to resonate.
  When Francyn Brown was speaking last Wednesday, students at schools 
across the Chicagoland area were walking out of class in solidarity 
with Stoneman Douglas students. They are all calling for commonsense 
gun reform. These students don't have time or patience for political 
games in Washington or Springfield. They have seen their friends, kids 
just like themselves, get shot in their classrooms and neighborhoods. 
They have had enough.
  Francyn Brown said:

       It's not supposed to matter what side of the aisle a 
     politician sits. We are supposed to all protect the future of 
     our children.

  I couldn't agree more.
  These students and young people across the country are changing the 
debate about gun violence. They are making it clear how absurd it is 
for lawmakers in this Chamber, across the rotunda, or in State capitals 
to do nothing when Americans get shot every day in their homes, their 
neighborhoods, their churches, nightclubs, concerts, and schools. They 
are fed up with politicians in Washington who ignore the overwhelming 
majority of Americans who want commonsense gun safety and listen 
instead to paranoid, bullying gun sales lobbyists.
  Remember, the National Rifle Association and its allies oppose 
virtually anything that hurts gun sales. They fight against proposals 
that might reduce gun sales, and they try to roll back laws on the 
books that limit them. That is their agenda. But it is not America's 
agenda. Corporate America is starting to walk away from the NRA. It is 
no longer a source of pride that they are doing business with the 
National Rifle Association--just the opposite. We are seeing company 
after company end relationships with the NRA because of its 
increasingly unhinged and hysterical rhetoric on the issue of gun 
safety. Corporate America--some of the biggest corporations in our 
Nation--realize that the NRA no longer speaks for responsible gun 
owners. When will Congress realize this?
  We know we need to act to keep our children safe. There is no single 
reform that can stop every shooting, but we know there are gaps in our 
gun laws that make it easy for criminals, abusers, troubled children, 
and mentally unstable people to get guns, even military assault weapons 
with bump stocks and high-capacity magazines.
  We need to close these gaps, and that requires the Republicans who 
control Congress to stand up to the NRA and do something that the NRA 
might not like. For starters, my Republican colleagues could take up 
legislation that the leader of their party, President Trump, proposed 
last Thursday. Here is one of the President's infamous tweets:

       I will be strongly pushing Comprehensive Background Checks 
     with an emphasis on Mental Health. Raise age to 21 and end 
     sale of Bump Stocks! Congress is in a mood to finally do 
     something on this issue--I hope!

  And I hope as well.
  There are proposals that Americans broadly support. Let's do 
something. Of course, the NRA is opposed to most of these. We expected 
that. These proposals might have some negative impact on gun sales, but 
is the gun sales lobby now in charge of writing bills for the Senate 
and the House? Deferring to the NRA is the reason we have reached this 
moment in history.
  Remember, the Senate has held one gun vote since President Trump came 
to office, and it was a vote to prevent mental health records from the 
Social Security Administration from going into the FBI's gun background 
check system. That is the only vote since the Trump administration took 
office. It is the only thing we have done here--roll back a law on the 
books on mental health and background checks. That was a giveaway to 
the gun lobby, which claims to support enforcing the laws on the books 
but actually tries to roll

[[Page S1226]]

back those laws if it means helping to lift their sales.
  Let's show the students at Stoneman Douglas and across the country 
that we hear them. I hope we show that reducing gun violence is a 
priority.
  I call on my Republican colleagues to join the Democrats in a 
bipartisan effort to treat the issue of gun safety with the sense of 
urgency that the American people believe is necessary. If Republicans 
gave a fraction of the effort to gun safety that they have to other 
issues, we could get this done--and done quickly. There are plenty of 
reforms we could pass that are completely consistent with the Second 
Amendment and would save lives. Even President Trump, for the time 
being, has said that he supports them.
  So let's get started. Not on a giveaway to the gun lobby--let's work 
on closing loopholes. Let's have universal background checks. Over 90 
percent of the American people believe we should keep guns out of the 
hands of convicted felons and mentally unstable people. I also believe 
that those who are subject to protective orders for domestic violence 
should be disqualified from buying a gun. I would say that those who 
are on the terrorist watch list, whom we do not allow to fly on 
airplanes because of fear that they could do harm to others, shouldn't 
be allowed to buy guns in the United States. I want to add a provision 
that straw purchasers--the girlfriends with no criminal record who buy 
the weapons to give to the boyfriends with a long criminal record--
ought to have the book thrown at them. Let's get to work.
  I want to thank the victims and advocates who have worked for many 
years to help reduce the epidemic of gun violence. I want them to know 
we stand with them, and I hope we can all stand with them on a 
bipartisan basis.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority whip.