[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 129 (Tuesday, July 31, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5469-S5472]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT
APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Cloture having been invoked, the clerk will
report the bill.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 6147) making appropriations for the Department
of the Interior, environment, and related agencies for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other
purposes.
Pending:
Shelby amendment No. 3399, in the nature of a substitute.
Murkowski amendment No. 3400 (to Amendment No. 3399), of a
perfecting nature.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3304
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, to accommodate the Senator from Utah, I
will not make my remarks first, but just by way of introduction to say
that tonight at midnight American national security is going to be
irreversibly weakened by the actions of President Trump and his
administration. That is because at midnight the administration will
allow the online publication of blueprints to manufacture 3D plastic
guns, and this is one example.
So to accommodate the Senator from Utah, instead of making my remarks
now, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate
consideration of S. 3304 submitted earlier today; that the bill be
considered read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider
be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action
or debate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
The Senator from Utah.
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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I first saw
this legislation literally moments ago; therefore, I haven't had
adequate time to review it, but I will say this: Any legislation that
comes from this body that begins with the following words will attract
my attention and should attract the attention of anyone who is
concerned about our First Amendment and other constitutional rights. It
begins with the words: ``It shall be unlawful for any person to
intentionally publish. . . . '' That ought to be concerning to us--to
each and every one of us--Democrats and Republicans alike.
On that basis, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Florida.
Mr. NELSON. Mr. President, the Senator is basing that on First
Amendment rights. There are many limits on our First Amendment rights
of speech. You cannot say ``fire'' in a crowded theater. Why in the
world would you assert First Amendment rights to publish instructions
to manufacture a plastic gun that someone can take through a metal
detector, into a crowded theater, and start shooting in that theater--
instead of shouting ``fire,'' which is clearly an understood limitation
upon our First Amendment rights of speech.
It is inexplicable that the administration is allowing this to go
into effect at midnight tonight. It is dangerous. In fact, the
President this morning tweeted that allowing these blueprints to go
online--the President tweeted: ``It doesn't seem to make sense.''
I would say amen to that, Mr. President, but it is your
administration that has allowed this to happen because after years of
winning this issue in courts at every stage of litigation, the
administration has surrendered to the crazed demands of a self-
described anarchist who is going to put this on the internet. He wants
to sow chaos--he said so--in our country and across the world by making
these blueprints widely available.
We can make this impossible if, No. 1, the President will do it. He
can stop it before midnight, and the clock is ticking. We are only
talking less than 9 hours from now because 3D-printed guns, made of
plastic or resin, can't be detected by metal detectors. Because they
are plastic, there is not a serial number on the metal so they are
untraceable, and anyone can get their hands on them, even people who
are legally barred from having a gun, such as felons or domestic
abusers. So after midnight, people can walk onto airplanes with a
deadly weapon because they are not caught in the metal detector, and
people would not know about it.
People can walk into schools. My State is the most recent for a
school shooting. As a result of Parkland, people are outraged. They
want to harden schools, but now are we going to render the metal
detectors useless as they try to harden the schools because somebody
can get through a metal detector with this or with an AK-47 or an AR-15
that can be manufactured by these 3D printers?
Somebody could come into this building, somebody could be up in that
Gallery right now, and if they have a plastic gun, including bullets
that are plastic bullets, we wouldn't know about it.
So whether you are talking about schools or this Chamber or whether
we are talking about airports, any public space that we try to protect
is going to be useless because these 3D-printed firearms are a direct
threat to our national security, and we are going to let these go up on
the internet tonight at midnight.
I think some of our allies like the Israelis should be concerned
about this because this is not limited to the United States. These can
be printed anywhere in the world. Therefore, it can give national
security apparatuses a great headache because they can't detect them.
So as I stated in the unanimous consent request, I and other Senators
have introduced the legislation today to block the online publication
of blueprints.
Now, as it turns out, since we can't do it here, and if the President
can't do it in 8 hours 45 minutes, it is going online, and it is going
to take us a long time--I mean, what Senator or Representative can
object to this? So even if we can get the legislation passed, it is
going to take a while because the legislative process is slow.
We have also introduced a separate bill to require every gun to have
a serial number and to have a main component made of metal so it can be
detected by a metal detector.
Obviously, this is all common sense. This is not a partisan issue.
Everybody should be concerned about the threat posed by these deadly
plastic guns.
I had intended to give these remarks before asking for unanimous
consent. As an accommodation to the Senator from Utah, who had to run
to an appointment, I went ahead and asked that unanimous consent. But I
want my fellow Senators, who have been so great and so articulate on
this issue, to be heard. I ask for them to also speak--the Senator from
Utah's objection was about First Amendment rights--about why those
objections don't apply here.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from
Florida for his leadership on this profoundly important and imminently
threatening issue of safety, as well my colleague from New Jersey for
his very important leadership and also Senator Markey from
Massachusetts. We have joined together in this cause to prevent a new
wave of lethal gun violence in our streets and communities resulting
from these plastic, undetectable, and untraceable, weapons. We are
talking about assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns--all of them
homemade. They are ghost guns. They are the new frontier and new face
of gun violence in this country.
Our colleague from Utah raised a First Amendment objection. The fact
is that the courts are dealing with that objection. It is the basis of
a challenge brought by a group who so far has failed in the courts to
stop this public health regulation.
No right is absolute. The First Amendment is not absolute. The idea
of crying fire in a movie house is one example that is given time and
again. Likewise, in the course of our history, we have found that the
First Amendment has to yield to public safety when there is an imminent
and urgent threat. Clearly, there is here.
I have supported companion legislation that would, in fact, stop the
actual making of these kinds of weapons. It involves none of the First
Amendment difficulties the Senator from Utah has raised, and I will be
pursuing it perhaps through the same kind of unanimous consent effort
in the days to come.
Today, the Senator from Florida is absolutely right to seek this
body's unanimous consent in the face of this threat that is self-
inflicted by the Trump administration. It has caved to the rightwing
fringe group and the NRA, which are challenging this public safety
regulation, and it has, in effect, snatched defeat from the jaws of
victory because the litigation was on a path to prevailing against
those objections. This litigation should have been permitted to run its
course. It was on a path to success. But now the administration has
created this emergency, beginning at midnight tonight. On August 1,
plans, designs, blueprints can be published without limit on the
internet, making possible the mass homemade manufacture of these ghost
guns. They are a scourge, a potential source of death and injury on our
streets.
Any idea that plastic is less durable or strong as a source of
material for these guns is completely outmoded because we make planes
from plastic. Plastic in some forms is as durable and strong as metal.
The threat here is real and urgent, and I join my colleague from
Florida in asking that there be unanimous consent. I hope we will
pursue this legislative effort together and that we will have
bipartisan support. I stress that we must have bipartisan support.
Senators who fail to step up, speak out, and act in the face of this
emergency should be held accountable.
Mr. President, I yield the floor to our colleague from New Jersey.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I join my colleagues on the floor, and I
salute both Senator Nelson and Senator Blumenthal, who represent
[[Page S5471]]
States whose citizens have felt the scourge of gun violence--in
Newtown, in Parkland, and in the Pulse nightclub. I don't know how many
more Parklands we need, but I certainly know that my colleague from
Utah, who only read a part about what alarms him--that it shall not be
possible to publish what? To publish the information to create a gun--a
gun that is undetectable and untraceable.
Why are we spending billions to secure ourselves as we go through the
airports of our country? We saw it after September 11. Now we are going
to undermine all of those billions and all of that security by allowing
anyone here or in the world to get access to the IP address. You
download it, and all of a sudden, you can create a three-dimensional
plastic gun that is as deadly as any other gun.
What draws us to the floor to ask the unusual effort of unanimous
consent to ultimately bring this legislation to the floor is the
failure of the administration to not allow this to happen in the first
place. We won't need legislation if the President turns back the
decisions of his Secretary of State and others in his administration
and says: Wait. This is not in our national security interests. It is
not in the national interests of the United States to allow our
citizens to be exposed to an undetectable, untraceable gun that is as
deadly as any other. It is not in the national interests and security
interests of the United States to have our soldiers halfway around the
world face terrorists who have access to a new design that will be
cheaper for them and at the end of the day will allow them to attack
our soldiers.
It is unconscionable. But since the administration, if anything, has
acted the opposite way, we come to the floor. If the government has any
specific role that rises above all others, it is to protect its
citizens. That is what we are trying to do here. It should be a
bipartisan request.
What is so difficult about the legislation? Nothing much. One of the
two pieces of legislation simply says that you cannot permit an IP
address to be published on the internet because, globally, anybody can
get that, download it, and create a gun. That is the simple part of it.
The other one is that any gun has to be traceable and identifiable and
therefore has to have a number on it.
Even when our colleagues who are the most ardent advocates of the
Second Amendment say they want to keep guns out of the hands of
criminals--well, how do you keep a gun out of the hands of criminals
when it isn't detectable and isn't traceable? It is pretty amazing. I
have been in the Congress 26 years between the House and the Senate,
and it is one of the most amazing moments for me.
Look, this country has a gun violence problem. It has a mass-shooting
problem. But a do-it-yourself, downloadable gun will supercharge this
crisis, leading to more senseless tragedies. It is already too easy for
criminals, extremists, and terrorists to get their hands on a gun. Now
we are going to add a new concern: terrorists packing the plans for
new, plastic, printable firearms. I don't care if a gun is made out of
metal or plastic--if it can fire a bullet and take someone's life, then
it should be regulated.
It is beyond irresponsible for the Trump administration to roll over
and allow a self-described anarchist to post directions for do-it-
yourself guns on a website available to anyone with an internet
connection. That is what we are saying. Already, according to some news
reports, the blueprints for an AR-15--the weapon used in the massacre
at Parkland--were downloaded more than 2,500 times. That is 2,500
unknown individuals in an unregulated space.
As the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I
was appalled to find out that the State Department carried this out
without notifying Congress. Last Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo was before our committee, and he looked us in the eye and said
that he was unaware of the issue and that he would look into it. That
was on Wednesday. On Friday, the State Department had suspended arms
export regulations specifically to allow these 3D gun blueprints to be
posted on the internet--so much for looking into it.
This is a case that was proceeding through the courts where the
government had won at every round. In this morning's tweet, the
President made it pretty clear that instead of listening to the
concerns of the American people when he has a gun question--which I
would submit is not even a gun question; it is a national security
question--he listens to the NRA.
The NRA may be concerned in this particular case. Why? Because
plastic guns don't get built by the gun manufacturers and dealers that
they represent and that fund their causes.
The posting of a 3D gun shows just how dangerous the Trump
administration's regulatory effort to loosen export controls on
firearms--including assault-style rifles and even sniper rifles--
actually is to the safety of Americans at home, abroad, and innocent
civilians across the globe.
All you have to do is go to this company's website to see it for
yourself. They are proclaiming that ``the era of the downloadable gun''
is here. That is what they say on the website. ``The era of the
downloadable gun'' is here. Well, we should make sure that era doesn't
happen.
These are two simple but powerful commonsense pieces of legislation
that can protect us. I call upon the President to stop it dead in its
tracks so we don't have to wait for the legislation, but if not, we
call upon this institution to protect the American people.
I hope my colleagues will consider coming back later in the day and
making another unanimous consent request so that we can actually
protect the American people against the ability of anyone--anyone--with
a 3D printer to create a gun that can kill a human being and ultimately
defy all of our security procedures at airports and elsewhere. And it
lets any terrorist in the world who wishes us harm to manufacture it in
quantity. That is pretty outrageous. That is what we are talking about.
I hope the administration will see the light and change their course.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida, Mr.
Nelson, for introducing this legislation and also my other colleagues
who have been on the Senate floor today.
This is emergency legislation, which is why there was a request for
unanimous consent to move forward today. It is very disturbing that
consent was not provided because we know that as a result of the Trump
administration's actions, starting tomorrow, people all over the
country--in fact, all over the world--are going to be able to download
on their computers instructions and a whole manual on how to
manufacture plastic guns with 3D printing.
This is something that has been before previous administrations. The
Obama administration fought hard against this ability for people to be
able to send those instructions to make 3D guns at the speed of light
around the world. In fact, this administration early on opposed
allowing this to happen.
Somehow, when this whole lawsuit was resolved the other day, the
folks who want to send these instructions around the world were allowed
to do so. In fact, Alan Gottlieb, who is with the Second Amendment
Foundation that was part of this case, said:
We asked for the Moon and we figured the government would
reject it, but they didn't want to go to trial. The
government fought us all the way and then all of the sudden
folded their tent.
Secretary Pompeo and the Trump administration folded their tent. As a
consequence, Americans will be placed at much higher risk starting
tomorrow. We have already seen over 1,000 people sign up to begin to
receive the instructions to make AR-15s using 3D printing.
Why is this going to pose a big danger? No. 1, it is a total end-run
around criminal background checks for the purchase of a handgun or any
kind of weapon. We should be closing the loopholes in the existing
background check system, closing things like the gun show loophole.
Instead, this allows for a total runaround. If you can just download
instructions and use a 3D printer to make a gun at home, you obviously
aren't going to go through any kind of criminal background check.
No. 2, we have spent a lot of time and effort giving the ATF the
authority to track guns used in crimes. I would have
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thought all of us want to make sure we can track people down who are
using guns to commit crimes and catch them. If you print a gun at home
using a 3D printer, there is no traceable number, there is no serial
number. We are not going to be able to easily track down the people who
are using these guns to commit crimes.
No. 3, with plastic 3D printing, the technology we have at airports
to detect metal will become ineffective.
Folks around the world, if you are a terrorist wanting to do harm,
now you are going to get instructions over the internet. You are going
to be able to download it as easy as you can download an iTune. With a
3D printer in your basement or around the corner in some space, you are
going to be able to manufacture guns; No. 1, evading metal detectors at
airports, putting the entire flying public at risk; No. 2, it is a
public end-run around the criminal background check system, which is
already flawed; and, No. 3, it will not allow us to trace guns used in
crimes.
I thought there was a consensus in this body that we should get after
people who use guns to commit crimes, whether crimes in the United
States or crimes around the world. Yet what this body is doing by not
allowing a vote today on the Nelson bill is saying it is OK for people
to be using this technology in their basements to make guns that can
evade all these systems and commit crimes and make it impossible to
trace who did it.
This is a really bad day for the U.S. Senate. This is a moment where
people should be acting in emergency fashion to stop this danger and
risk to the American public. Instead, people are folding up their tent
and allowing this to happen, starting tomorrow. It is a shameful
moment.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
____________________