[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 94 (Wednesday, June 5, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3224-S3225]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING LaQUITA BROWN

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, LaQuita Brown was 39 years old. She was a 
public servant from Chesapeake, VA. She had worked in the public works 
department for more than 4 years. She was a right-of-way agent. Her 
friends called her ``Ms. Worldwide'' because she loved to travel. She 
had

[[Page S3225]]

been all around the world, and her social media was plastered with 
pictures of her travels.
  Her father, as any father would be, is absolutely heartbroken by her 
death.
  He said:

       She was just everything. She was everything to me. I know 
     nobody's perfect--but from the time she was born, she had no 
     faults.

  For the Brown family, the grief surrounding LaQuita's death comes on 
the heels of LaQuita's brother dying from a hit-and-run driver 3 years 
ago. Her father said that LaQuita helped him through the grief. ``She 
saved me,'' he said. ``I wouldn't have made it through that [without 
her].''
  In 100 days into the year, we have had 100 mass shootings. It doesn't 
happen anywhere else in the world except in the United States of 
America. We can't claim to be helpless, and we can't claim to have no 
solutions because, if it only happens here and nowhere else, then there 
must be something different happening here. We can learn. We can adapt.
  It has now been 100 days since the House of Representatives passed a 
universal background checks bill, a universal background checks bill 
that is supported by 90 percent of Americans and would have a 
significant downward effect on the number of people who are shot in 
this country.
  We tend to pay attention as a nation and as a body only when 
something like Virginia Beach happens, when there is a mass shooting of 
an epic scale--when 5 or 10 or 20 people lose their lives at one time. 
Yet, since the House passed the universal background checks bill, 
10,000 people have been shot and killed in America. That is a stunning 
number.
  There have been 10,000 people shot and killed in America in just the 
100 days since the House passed the universal background checks bill, 
but the vast majority of these individuals were not killed in mass 
shootings. Most of these were suicides. Most of these were individuals 
who had taken their own lives with weapons. Others were accidental 
shootings. Many of them were homicides.
  The grief and the pain that comes with all of those is no different 
than the grief that LaQuita Brown's family is feeling right now. We 
should care about every single one of these deaths.
  The reason I pegged this to the passage of the background checks bill 
is that we know that background checks save lives in States that have 
universal background checks, meaning, if you are getting a gun in a 
commercial sale, you need to prove that you are not a criminal or that 
you are not seriously mentally ill. In the States that have universal 
background checks, you have fewer suicides, and you have fewer 
homicides.
  Connecticut is a perfect example. The research shows that once we 
passed our universal background checks requirement--and we did it quite 
a number of years ago--we saw a 40-percent reduction in gun homicides 
in our State. Similarly, when Missouri went from having a universal 
background checks requirement to its not having one, the State saw a 
40-percent increase in gun homicides.
  Not every single one of these 10,000 deaths was preventable, but many 
of them could have been. It is not that we don't know what to do, and 
it is not that we don't know what makes this country different; it is 
just that we are unwilling to take those steps.
  Just this past weekend, 52 people were shot in communities across 
this country. There were 10 deaths from gunshot wounds in Chicago 
alone. These victims are just as worthy of remembering as the victims 
in Virginia Beach or in Sandy Hook or in Parkland.

                          ____________________