[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 38 (Monday, March 5, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1331-S1332]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Gun Violence

  Mr. NELSON. Madam President, since I see no other Senator who seeks 
recognition, I thought I would take the occasion to bring the Senate up 
to date on what is happening down in Florida in the aftermath of 17 
people being gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
  As we know, we have seen those students speak out with a boldness and 
clarity that is rarely seen, and they are not being intimidated at all 
as to what needs to be done. As a matter of fact, in the aftermath of 
the shooting--and while some of the funerals have still been going on--
since our Florida State Legislature is in session, over the course of 2 
weeks, the students have gone to the capital city of Tallahassee and 
have held individual meetings with State legislators. They have held a 
rally outside of the capital and insisted that maybe--just maybe--this 
might be a time that the State legislature should confront this issue 
head-on: that, in fact, there was something to the fact that a weapon 
that was originally developed for the military, an AR-15--the 
semiautomatic version of a military weapon--could do such damage and 
quickly go about killing so many people. It was 17 in the case of the 
high school.
  Just 2 years earlier, it was 49 people in Orlando at the Pulse 
nightclub. In between, we saw several mass killings with high-powered, 
military-style assault rifles in Texas, as well as 59 people being 
gunned down in Las Vegas.
  Last week, I talked about the assault weapon, and I have since had, 
over the weekend, constituents in Florida ask me to come back and speak 
on the floor of the Senate about the difference in the damage--the 
mayhem, the carnage, the slaughter--that occurs as a result of an 
assault rifle as compared to a handgun. You don't have to take it from 
this Senator. You can talk to the trauma surgeons. You can talk to the 
radiologist in the trauma center. As a matter of fact, several articles 
in the past week have been written in various publications in Florida 
and in the national press, along with there being

[[Page S1332]]

photographs to show the difference. Let me paraphrase the words of one 
of the trauma surgeons in Broward County who attended to some of the 
victims.
  He cited that on any normal night, particularly on a weekend, they 
have to treat gunshots. If that gunshot is from a handgun--say, a .22 
pistol or, say, a .9 millimeter pistol--the bullet will enter the 
victim, and unless that bullet goes to a critical organ, such as the 
heart or, for example, to the blood supply going into the liver, that 
bullet will continue through. If it comes out the other side, it will 
come out with a hole that is the same size as when it penetrated the 
body in the first place. It is not so with a bullet from an assault 
rifle because those weapons, which are developed for the military, are 
clearly for killing.
  The bullet, first of all, comes out at three times the speed--three 
times the velocity. Therefore, when it hits its target, it hits with 
three times the energy. Often, the bullet is designed so that when it 
hits the target, it will tumble and just tear through and destroy any 
flesh in its path, including bone and organs.
  The trauma center's radiologist explains that if a handgun's bullet, 
such as a .9 millimeter, goes through the liver, they can usually save 
the patient's life. They point out that of almost all handgun wounds, 
they can save the life unless the bullet hits a major artery or organ, 
like the heart, or a major blood supply. It is not so with the bullet 
from an assault weapon. The bullet enters at three times the velocity, 
with three times the energy. It starts tumbling, ripping away flesh. If 
it goes, for example, to a kidney or to the liver, it pulverizes that 
organ and comes out the other side of the victim with a hole as large 
as an orange.
  That is the difference between a handgun wound and a wound from a 
high-velocity assault rifle, whether it is a semiautomatic or whether 
it is an automatic. It was made automatic, with what we saw in Las 
Vegas, with the bump stocks. He made a semiautomatic, which was legal 
to purchase, into an automatic rifle. It is because of that carnage 
that one has to ask oneself: Would any American citizen want to have 
those kinds of assault rifles loose on the streets for people who want 
to use them for dastardly purposes? I think the answer is no.
  This Senator grew up on a ranch. I have hunted all of my life. I 
still hunt with my son, but an AR-15 is not for hunting; it is for 
killing. It is an understanding of the difference of these weapons that 
is causing the American people to gradually understand that these kinds 
of weapons have no place on the streets of America.
  One can imagine the SWAT team. Had they been there while the shooter 
had still been inside and had they entered that school and tried to 
find the killer and known that what they were going to come up against 
was an AR-15 instead of a handgun, that would have been a terrible 
thing. One can imagine, if there had happened to be an armed guard with 
a pistol and he had gone after the shooter but the shooter had had an 
AR-15, that would not have been a fair firefight. With a pistol against 
an AR-15, one can imagine who is going to win that fight.
  These are the questions that the American people need to have 
answered as we go through these discussions about what to do. Thus, 
when these students all gather in Washington and in 100 cities around 
this country on March 24--a Saturday--and start marching in untold 
numbers, they are going to be asking: Isn't enough enough? Haven't we 
come to the point at which we ought to reexamine that the Second 
Amendment protects the right to bear arms but if these are the arms we 
want borne on our streets
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Moran). The Senator from Georgia.