[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 41 (Thursday, March 7, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1728-S1729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Background Checks

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I urge the Senate to take up legislation 
to require universal and complete background checks for individuals 
seeking to purchase a gun. I am pleased that the House recently passed 
this legislation, and it is well past time for the Senate to act.
  Rarely has a month gone by without a mass shooting, and many 
communities are ravaged daily by gun violence that does not make the 
news headlines. Individuals have used firearms to take countless 
innocent lives in concerts, churches, and even elementary schools. By 
now, these incidents are etched in our memories: Santa Fe, Parkland, 
Las Vegas, Orlando, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, Pittsburgh, and 
Thousand Oaks.
  In Maryland we saw tragedies that occurred in the Capital Gazette 
office in Annapolis. We, as a nation, must act to stem the tide of 
bloodshed and the hatred that drives it. We cannot allow such massacres 
to become routine in our society.
  We have the ability to end the tragic cycle of violence, but it will 
require us to come together in full urgency and honesty. I know we can 
protect innocent Americans from further senseless gun violence while 
still protecting the constitutional rights enjoyed for hunting and 
self-defense. Through commonsense gun safety reforms that would make 
background checks more efficient and close loopholes, I am confident we 
can do just that.
  Let me start with a little history, as provided by the Brady 
Campaign. The Gun Control Act of 1968 established a framework for 
legally prohibiting certain categories of people from possessing 
firearms. The list of prohibited persons has grown over the years and 
now includes categories such as felons, fugitives, domestic abusers, 
and those found by the court or other tribunal to be seriously mentally 
ill.
  Only in 1993, with the passage of the Brady Handgun Violence 
Prevention Act, did Congress provide the public with a presale process 
for checking whether a prospective firearm purchaser is legally able to 
purchase the firearm.
  Since the Brady Law took effect, it has blocked more than 3 million 
prohibited gun sales and processed over 278 million purchase requests. 
When someone goes to a federally licensed dealer to buy a gun, the 
retailer contacts the FBI to run a background check. The FBI checks the 
National Instant Criminal Background Check System to see if they are a 
convicted felon, fugitive, domestic abuser, or other prohibited 
purchaser.
  If the system reveals that the buyer is legally barred from owning a 
gun, then, the sale is denied. Simply put, the Brady Law prevents guns 
from getting into the hands of dangerous individuals.
  The Brady Law has blocked more than 3 million gun sales to prohibited 
buyers, helping to save countless lives, but the law doesn't apply to 
all gun sales. Instead, only Federal firearm licensees approved by the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives are required to 
conduct background checks on gun sales. The Brady Act background check 
requirement applies only to licensed dealers, allowing transactions 
conducted by private, unlicensed sellers to be completed without any 
check. Private, unlicensed sellers need not conduct any check under 
current law.
  However, the Brady Law was enacted before the rise of the internet. 
America has changed, and our Nation's gun laws need to change with it. 
Today, unlicensed gun sales made online and unregulated and unchecked 
contributed to one out of every five gun sales. That is simply wrong. 
Those sales can avoid the background check.
  Passing legislation to expand background checks to nearly every gun 
sale, including those conducted online at gun shows and through private 
transfers, should be the top priority in Congress for commonsense gun 
safety legislation to save lives.
  It is long past time to expand lifesaving Brady background checks to 
every gun sale. The public agrees. A 2018 study showed that 97 percent 
of Americans support expanding background checks--97 percent. We don't 
get any higher than that.
  The Senate should follow the lead of the House, which recently passed 
the legislation to expand criminal background checks. In the Senate, I 
cosponsored S. 42, the Background Check Expansion Act. This bill, which 
passed the House, would expand Federal background check requirements to 
include the sale or transfer of all firearms by private sellers, just 
as licensed dealers are required to conduct under the existing Brady 
Law.
  The bill requires background checks for sales or transfers of all 
firearms from one party to another, even if the party is not a 
federally licensed dealer. This requirement extends to all unlicensed 
sellers, whether they do business online, at gun shows, or out of their 
home.
  According to the Brady Campaign, in any given year in the United 
States, more than 120,000 Americans are shot in murders, assaults, 
suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, or police 
actions. Of these, 35,000 result in death. Over 17,000 of those injured 
or killed are children and teens. On average, 34 people in America are 
murdered on account of gun violence every single day.
  Mass shootings often shine the spotlight on the United States and its 
position as a global outlier. The number of firearms available to 
American civilians is estimated to be at around 310 million, according 
to the National Institute of Justice. According to the Small Arms 
Survey, the exact number of civilian-owned firearms is impossible to 
pinpoint because of a variety of factors, including arms that go 
unregistered, the illegal trade, and global conflict. However, 
estimates indicate that Americans own nearly half of the 650 million 
civilian-owned guns in the world today. Half are here in the United 
States. Our Nation is well armed.

  Americans own the most guns per person in the world, with about 4 in 
10 saying they either own a gun or live in a home with guns, according 
to the 2017 Pew Center study, and 48 percent of Americans say they grew 
up in a House with guns. According to the survey, a majority, 66 
percent, of U.S. gun owners own multiple firearms.
  The No. 2 country for the world's largest gun-owning population per 
capita is Yemen, a country that is in the throes of a years-long civil 
conflict,

[[Page S1729]]

and they trail significantly behind us. They have 54 guns per 100; we 
are at 88 guns owned per 100.
  When it comes to gun massacres, the United States is an anomaly. 
There are more public mass shootings in America than in any other 
country in the world. The United States makes up less than 5 percent of 
the world's population but holds 31 percent of global mass shooters. In 
Australia, for example, four mass shootings occurred between 1987 and 
1996. They decided to do something about that so they passed sensible 
gun safety legislation. Australia has not had a mass shooting since 
then.
  Gun homicide rates are about 25 times higher in the United States 
than other developed countries. According to the recent study of the 
American Journal of Medicine, the United States has one of the highest 
rates of death by firearm in the developed world, according to the 
World Health Organization data. The calculations based on the OECD data 
from 2010 showed that Americans are 51 times more likely to be killed 
by gunfire than people in the United Kingdom. We need to do something 
about this. We can't sit idly by.
  Congress should act today to close the so-called Charleston loophole. 
The Senate should once again follow the House's lead here. A 
particularly tragic example of the consequences of this loophole was 
the racist hate crime murder of nine people at the Emanuel African 
Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, that occurred in 2015. In 
that tragedy, the shooter was not legally allowed to possess a firearm 
due to drug charges but still was able to acquire his gun from a 
licensed dealer who made the decision to transfer, after the current 3-
business day period expired, despite not having received a definitive 
response from the background check system.
  Unfortunately, the sale to the shooter after 3 days fell into what is 
known as the default proceed sale, and this was not an isolated 
incident. Since 1994, gun sellers proceeded with between 3,000 and 
4,000 such sales every year simply because the information has not 
gotten back on the background check.
  I would note that in most cases, a licensed gun dealer receives 
notification from the system about a prospective buyer within a few 
minutes. In less than 10 percent of the cases, the examination may 
require additional time to complete the background check if the 
information the transferee provided is incomplete, inaccurate, or 
otherwise defective. Under current law, a licensed gun dealer 
conducting a background check on a prospective purchaser may sell the 
firearm to the purchaser after 3 business days, even if they have not 
received a reply in regard to the background check. This is wrong, and 
Congress should change the rule as the House has done.
  I agree gun laws alone cannot solve the problem, but gun laws will 
make a difference. Yes, there is no single answer, but we should be 
united in our willingness to do what we can to save lives.
  I agree with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that we must 
devote more resources to mental health priorities to identify young 
people who may be about to cause harm to themselves or others. Let's 
attack this problem from multiple directions. We cannot raise our hands 
in the air and give up because there is no one law that can solve the 
problem.
  Sitting on the sidelines is not an option when our children are being 
killed--sometimes by other children--and surrendering to the false 
logic that the problem is too big to address falls well short of what 
the American people deserve. We were sent to our Nation's capital to 
make tough decisions and to do the right thing.
  The American public is letting their voices be heard on this issue. 
Thoughts and prayers might console the grieving for a moment, but 
action speaks louder and will have lasting impact.
  From my hometown of Baltimore to many towns across America that have 
had their names in the headlines because of gun-related tragedies or 
mass shootings, people are calling on Congress to act.
  What we are proposing are logical next steps to address the deadly 
problem that has been festering in this country far too long. Too many 
lives have been lost. Let's do the right thing in the Senate and 
immediately take up legislation to require universal and completed 
background checks for individuals seeking to purchase a gun.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming.