[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 181 (Thursday, November 15, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7030-S7031]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              GUN VIOLENCE

  Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor, as I have many times 
in the last several years--and I know I am not alone in this--to talk 
about, unfortunately, yet another mass shooting. This one occurred in 
my home State--in Allegheny County, PA, in the southwestern corner of 
our State, in the city of Pittsburgh, in a community known as Squirrel 
Hill.
  I come here to do a couple of things--to honor the victims of this 
mass shooting and the individuals who were injured, of course; to offer 
condolences to the grieving families again; to express gratitude for 
the law enforcement and medical professionals who responded to the 
scene; and, of course, to stand with the community in the face of hate 
and terror.
  On this occasion, this deadly mass shooting occurred in one 
community, but it also occurred in a house of worship. It resulted in 
the deaths of 11 innocent Pennsylvanians. It left six people injured, 
including four law enforcement officers who were responding to the 
scene. It was a targeted, hateful attack on the Jewish community within 
the Squirrel Hill community in the city of Pittsburgh. It was an act of 
violence that we must work to ensure never happens again.
  It was just a couple of weeks ago, long before election day, on 
Saturday, October 27, that three congregations--the Tree of Life, the 
Dor Hadash, and the New Light--were engaged in Shabbat morning services 
at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, which 
is a residential part of the city of Pittsburgh. As these worshippers 
were engaged in services, what played out was the most deadly act of 
violence against the Jewish community in American history. These 
congregants were targeted for one reason--because of their religious 
beliefs, because they happened to be Jewish. Their lives were changed 
forever by one hateful act of terror, as were the lives of those who 
were injured.
  So our deepest condolences are with the 11 families of the victims of 
this attack. Here are the names of the 11: Joyce Fienberg, Richard 
Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal and his 
brother David Rosenthal, Bernice and Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin 
Wax, and Irving Younger. May their memories be blessings to their 
families and community. It is difficult to even begin to adequately 
express the hurt that this community has endured, the horror that these 
families have endured, and the hurt that is still part of this 
community.
  Maybe one of the best ways to convey not just our condolences and our 
sympathy but also our solidarity with those who faced that horror and 
that danger and that hate is to talk about what those folks did in that 
dark, dark hour. It literally was about an hour, maybe a little more 
than that, on that Saturday morning.
  We, of course, at this time--and so many have since that date--pay 
tribute to those in law enforcement who confronted the murderer with 
uncommon valor. We pay tribute, as well, to the emergency service 
professionals--nurses and doctors and others--who ministered to those 
who were wounded and tried their best to minister to those who were 
dying.
  All of these individuals--and it is impossible to name all of them 
whether they are in law enforcement or are medical professionals or are 
emergency personnel--were, at that moment, as they always are, servants 
in the most profound meaning of the word. These were servants who came 
forward to help in that darkness. They came forward to save and to 
comfort. As the great hymn ``The Servant Song'' tells us, these were 
servants who were holding the light for these individuals in the 
nighttime of their fear. That is what that song, ``The Servant Song,'' 
reminds us of.
  So, when a gunman with very powerful weapons was shooting directly at 
individuals--targeting them--in a house of worship, where there was no 
protection at all for those who were victims and for those who were 
targets but who survived and had to wait what must have seemed like an 
eternity for

[[Page S7031]]

help because the gunman was in control of that scene for a period of 
time, they were in that nighttime of their fear. Those servants came 
forward to bring some light to that darkness, to bring light to that 
nighttime of their fear.
  People all over the world have marveled at the strength, the resolve, 
and the love of the people of Pittsburgh--a community, as they have 
said so many times since, that is stronger than hate and, I would 
argue, that is stronger than ever.
  We are thinking about those families. We are thinking about those who 
gave so much in that hour of tragedy and horror and death and darkness. 
We also have to do more than that. Commendation and sympathy and 
condolences and solidarity and being determined to try to prevent this 
from ever happening again is all important, but we have to do more. We 
have to also act--maybe it is better to say ``take action''--to enact 
commonsense policies, laws, and other policies that will at least 
reduce the likelihood that these acts of violence will, in fact, 
continue to occur.
  This problem of mass shootings is a uniquely American problem that 
has to be solved by the American people, of course, through their 
elected representatives at every level of government but, maybe most 
especially, by those who are here in the U.S. Senate and in the other 
body, the House of Representatives, in working with the executive 
branch. I believe we have to take action. No single law and no series 
of measures, even if they were to be enacted into law, will remove the 
possibility that these mass shootings and other examples of horrific 
gun violence will suddenly vanish from the Earth and never happen 
again. Yet there are steps we can take that will, for sure, reduce the 
likelihood.
  The point I have made all along is that we have to take enough 
action, even a series of actions, that might prevent one fewer of these 
incidents in which kids are killed in school, as we saw 6 years ago in 
Newtown, CT, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, or one less example of 
people being gunned down in a nightclub or in another school in Florida 
or now in a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
  What do we need to do?
  We could start with measures that have broad-based support. Some of 
them are supported by 80 to 90 percent of the American people. We could 
require universal background checks. I think that that is about a 90-
to-10 issue, maybe. We could ban military-style assault weapons. There 
are millions of them on our streets already. There are weapons of war 
on our streets and in our communities. We could also limit high-
capacity magazines that allow hundreds of rounds to be fired in just a 
matter of seconds or minutes. We must keep guns out of the hands of 
dangerous people--suspected terrorists and individuals convicted of 
hate crimes, stalking, domestic violence, and dating violence.
  These policies can't prevent every act of violence or replace what 
has been lost at the Tree of Life Synagogue or in communities across 
the Nation, the most recent, of course, being in California, but we can 
take action. I don't think it is in the best interest of the American 
people to surrender to this problem, to surrender to this uniquely 
American problem, and just throw up our hands and say that there is 
nothing we can do, as some might say, about mass shootings or that 
there is nothing we can do, some might argue, to prevent losing over 
30,000 lives a year to gun violence. I think we can take action. I 
think we can do more. At a minimum, we have to try. All of the measures 
I have mentioned--you could add more, like plugging the loophole which 
says that if you are too dangerous to get on an airplane because you 
happen to be a terrorist or we have a reasonable suspicion, a well-
grounded suspicion, that you are a terrorist and you can't get on an 
airplane, why would that same individual be allowed to have a weapon? 
It doesn't make a lot of sense. We have some work to do, as legislators 
and as Americans, to try to reduce the likelihood that these attacks 
will continue.

  None of the measures that I have outlined here today--and we could 
add more to the list--are in any way inconsistent with the Second 
Amendment or in any way would undermine the right of a law-abiding 
American to purchase a firearm and to use a firearm for self-protection 
or for hunting or whatever else.
  We have to take action at long last. It has been too long. There have 
been too many tragedies, too many lives lost, and the response by 
Congress for years now--you could even say for even decades--has been 
to throw up their hands and say: There is nothing we can do. I don't 
believe that about America--that the most powerful Nation in the world 
can do nothing on this issue. We need to do more.
  We need to debate it on this floor again, but do something we haven't 
done in a substantial way in at least 6 years, and that is to have 
votes on this floor that deal with this issue.
  We have to solve a lot of problems in the weeks that remain in this 
Congress and in the new Congress, but one of them is this: to begin to 
solve this problem from which only America has suffered. It is 
difficult, it is contentious, and it is certainly not a problem that 
has an easy solution, but to do nothing, which is basically what 
Congress has done for far too long, is not in the best interest of the 
American people. I would argue it is inconsistent with our values, and 
it is inconsistent with who we are.
  As we express condolences for those who have loved and lost--those 
families who have suffered either the loss of a loved one or are still 
suffering because a loved one is injured, the law enforcement who were 
injured in this incident--and as we commend and salute the good work of 
law enforcement, the good work of medical service professionals--those 
professionals who are on our streets every day, saving people--as we do 
all of that and offer those words of sympathy and condolences and 
commendation, let us also be determined as a people to begin to reduce 
the likelihood that we are going to be the only country in the world 
that continually suffers and endures mass shooting after mass shooting, 
losing lives all throughout these many years and just in the last 
couple of months.
  I think that is a challenge, but, also, solving that problem is a 
mission worthy of a great country.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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