[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 97 (Tuesday, June 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3309-S3312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Virginia Beach City Hall Shooting

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I rise to talk about a sad tragedy that 
occurred in Virginia on May 31--the shooting deaths of 12 individuals 
in Virginia Beach.
  It was a Friday. I was in Virginia Beach that day having meetings in 
the community on the boardwalk at a hotel with the Old Dominion Bar 
Association. It was a meeting about sea level rise with interested 
constituents.
  I had just left Virginia Beach to drive back to my home, and after I 
left, within a couple of hours, I got word about a shooting at the 
Virginia Beach City Hall.
  This is a city hall I know well. I was the mayor of Richmond and used 
to work closely with the mayor of Virginia Beach at that time. I also 
tried cases in the courthouse right there near Virginia Beach City Hall 
when I served as a private attorney in private practice.
  I rise to talk about these 12 victims but also talk about my hope 
that the Virginia Beach shooting will lead us to stop being bystanders 
and take meaningful action to reduce gun violence.
  If I could say a few words about each of the 12 individuals who were 
killed at Virginia Beach: Laquita Brown was a 4-year employee of the 
department of public works. She was known for her love of travel, her 
friends, and her ability to light up a room with her presence.
  Ryan Keith Cox was a 12-year employee of the city. He had worked with 
the department of public utilities, was known for his kindness and 
beautiful singing voice. He became known just in the hours after the 
shooting as somebody who ran into danger looking for more people to 
save after ensuring his workers were sheltered in a barricaded room. He 
saved many lives on that horrible day and was killed himself doing so.
  Tara Gallagher was a 6-year employee at the city of Virginia Beach. 
She worked as an engineer to provide clean drinking water to people. 
She was murdered in the shooting.
  Mary Louise Gayle had worked for 24 years for the city in public 
works. She was known as a cheerful coworker and devoted mother and 
grandmother.
  Alexander Mikhail Gusev was a 9-year employee of the city, emigrated 
from Belarus to Virginia Beach to find a better life. He was known as a 
generous and devoted coworker, friend, uncle, and brother. He was 
murdered that day.
  Joshua Hardy worked for the city for 4 years in the department of 
public utilities. He was known for his kindhearted nature, love for 
family and faith.
  Michelle ``Missy'' Langer worked for the city for 12 years and was 
known for her beaming smile and passion for the Pittsburgh Steelers. We 
have a lot of Steelers fans in Virginia. She had plans to retire soon. 
She was murdered that day.
  Rick Nettleton was a 28-year employee of the city. He was a selfless 
leader in regional utility system planning and a veteran of the 130th 
Engineer Brigade of the Army.
  Kate Nixon was a 10-year employee of the city who was known for her 
intellect. She was a loving wife and mother of three.
  Chris Kelly Rapp had just been there 11 months as a city employee. He 
was known for his kindness and passion for playing the bagpipes. I met 
a couple at the memorial whose wedding he had graced with his bagpipe 
playing. He was devoted to his wife.
  Bert Snelling was one of the 12 who was not a city employee. He was a 
contractor. He had come to the municipal center to get a permit that 
day, like so many people who walk into the building permits office to 
get a permit. I learned a lot about Bert because he was a contractor 
who had done the carpentry renovations on the mayor's home. The mayor 
talked about befriending this wonderful contractor in the community.
  Then, finally, there was Bobby Williams. Bobby had worked for the 
city for 41 years in the department of public utilities. During the 
course of his time with Virginia Beach, he was awarded with eight 
service awards in recognition of his devoted work for the city, and he 
was planning on retiring later this year.
  These were 12 beautiful people--12 lives lost--who had track records 
of accomplishment and more to give. They were new employees, 41-year 
employees, single, married with children, grandchildren. All just 
wanted to serve their colleagues. That is why they were there. They 
wanted to serve their fellow citizens of Virginia Beach.
  I want to commend the response of city employees. Some of them 
alerted coworkers and pulled them into the shelter, saving unknowable 
numbers of lives.
  I want to commend Virginia Beach officers. They responded within 
minutes of the first shootings. They heroically risked their lives, all 
four of them. Although they had all trained, including a training 
session the day before, most had not trained together. Imagine that you 
get this call and the four of you are going into a building where there 
is a shooting underway. You haven't trained together, but you are 
trying to put your training to use. They did remarkable work.
  One of the officers was shot while confronting the gunman. He 
survived because he was wearing a bulletproof vest that was likely 
funded by a bulletproof vest program through which the Senate and the 
House have, for years, enabled local jurisdictions to have bulletproof 
vests.
  The gunman, who was killed in the firefight, was carrying high-
caliber handguns with high-capacity ammunition magazines. By some 
reports, the magazines allowed the gun to fire up to 30 rounds in 
automatic succession. And he was carrying suppressors that suppressed 
the noise of these weapons, which made it more difficult for the 
responding officers to determine where the shooting was happening.
  I want to commend the emergency personnel for treating the wounded 
and also those who have responded to the mental health needs of the 
families of the wounded and killed, of other city employees, of friends 
of the city employees, and of the entire community that was brutalized 
by this. These deaths have robbed Virginia Beach of some wonderful 
neighbors who served their communities in many ways.
  I went to a memorial service a week after the shooting, last 
Thursday, June 6. I went to the memorial and saw the mountains of 
flowers that had been left by crosses with each of the names of the 12 
on them. While I was there, I visited with everyday people who were 
coming by to pay respects. They wanted to tell me how proud they were 
of their city, the city employees, the bravery and heroism, and people 
pulling together. I met a couple for whom one of the guys had played 
bagpipes at their wedding. I met the mother of one of the victims and 
family members of others.
  When they saw elected officials there, they wanted to talk about 
their pride in their city, but they also wanted to share with us as 
elected officials that we need to do something. It was a reminder that 
no place is safe and no place is immune to the epidemic of gun 
violence. Again and again, what people said to me is ``I couldn't have 
imagined that this would have happened here.'' But we have said that 
about schools; we have said that about night clubs; we have said that 
about concerts; we have said that about colleges; we have said that 
about communities all over this country--churches, synagogues, Sikh 
temples: ``I couldn't have imagined that this would happen here.''
  We can't forget that sometimes instances like this, in which there is 
mass violence, get headlines. We had a 9-year-old girl in Richmond who 
was killed at a neighborhood park by a gunshot a couple of weeks back. 
We had a shooting in Chesapeake, VA, near in time to the massacre of 
these 12, where many were injured--a mass shooting that affected a 
backyard barbecue. Many of those people were injured and were taken to 
the hospital.

[[Page S3310]]

  I have had painful experience with this. I was the Governor of 
Virginia during what, at the time, was the worst shooting in the 
history of the United States--the massacre at Virginia Tech on April 
16, 2007. It was the worst day of my life. It is always going to be the 
worst day of my life, responding and immediately going to a campus and 
dealing with 32 families who had lost their kids, their spouses--
students, grad students, professors, trying to deal with them in their 
grief, trying to provide answers, and trying to come up with solutions.
  I was the mayor of Richmond at a time when our city had the second 
highest homicide rate in the United States.
  Both of those experiences have given me a lot of scar tissue, so much 
so that when I hear of an instance like this in Virginia--just as other 
Virginians have the same feeling--you have both the fresh emotions of 
horror and sadness, and you feel like a bandaid has been torn off 
because you are reliving experiences that we have had to go through too 
many times.
  Yet the one thing I have learned--and I have learned a lot, but the 
one thing I have learned is that we don't have to stand by and say that 
nothing can be done. I have learned that the pain is real, but there 
are solutions. In the midst of a horrible crime epidemic in Richmond, 
we took meaningful steps that brought the homicide rate down by 60 
percent and reduced violent crime dramatically. You can take action. If 
you can take action that will keep people safer, then you have an 
obligation to take action.
  In the aftermath of the shooting at Virginia Tech--where a deranged 
individual got the weapons of destruction that killed 32 people and 
wounded another couple dozen--we learned he got his weapons because of 
a glitch in the background check system. I was able to fix part of it 
with an executive order. There was more I wanted to do to make 
background checks universal and to make sure guns would not go into the 
hands of individuals deemed too dangerous to have them by Federal laws 
that have been on the books for decades, but some of what I wanted to 
do legislatively I couldn't get my legislature to do. At least we 
learned that if you have a better background check system, more people 
will be safer. If we banned high-capacity magazines, more people would 
be safer.
  We have learned that there are steps you can take to keep people 
safer, and if you can take those steps, yet you choose not to, you are 
a bystander to this horrible violence.
  On Monday morning, just yesterday, I met with community leaders in 
Charlottesville to discuss gun violence. Charlottesville is a community 
that has been deeply affected by violence in the last couple of years 
because of the riot led by White supremacists and Neo-Nazis, which 
caused the deaths of three people in August 2017. They understand 
violence. They understand the pain of it. They understand missing 
people who are contributing members of the community. They wanted to 
talk about what we needed to do. They were frustrated. They were 
frustrated by a General Assembly of Virginia and a Congress of the 
United States being bystanders and not being willing to take actions we 
need to take.
  One teacher in our meeting told a very vivid story about how she has 
had to rearrange her classroom. She keeps a filing cabinet next to the 
front door. The door opens from the hall into her classroom. She has 
positioned a full filing cabinet next to the door, and she has figured 
out how to race to that cabinet and tip it over to block the door from 
being opened. Imagine that you go to school to be a teacher. You are 
trained in pedagogy. You are trained in how to motivate youngsters of 
all kinds. They don't teach you how to stop an active shooter, but we 
have to start teaching all our teachers how to do it. This teacher 
talked about it. The teacher talked about the drills they have to have 
in the first week of school every year. She has to take her class of 
elementary students into a bathroom, which is their designated hiding 
spot. She is taught to stand in front of the door of the bathroom and 
block it from being opened, so if there were a shooting going on and 
there were shots being fired through the door, she would be the one who 
would be injured or killed rather than her students. Imagine expecting 
that of our elementary school students in the United States circa 2019.
  We have a sickness when we expect elementary school teachers to have 
to herd their kids into bathrooms. Imagine what the little second and 
third graders think when going into these drills. Even if they never 
have an active shooting incident, imagine what impression the drills 
make on their minds. We have a sickness.
  The Virginians I talked to yesterday said: Look, we have to do 
something about it. Virginians are asking our General Assembly and our 
Congress to take action.
  I am encouraged that the Governor of Virginia has undertaken a fairly 
unusual step. He has called the General Assembly back into session. The 
session is over in Virginia. He has called them back for a session on 
July 9 to consider gun safety measures that he is going to put on the 
table. Everybody can be held accountable. They can vote yes or no and 
propose amendments. Nobody will be able to hide. People have to be held 
accountable as to whether they are willing to take steps to keep people 
safe.
  No single fix will prevent all gun violence. Each incident is 
different. Each person, each perpetrator, each victim is different. 
There is not one thing we are going to be able to do that is going to 
end gun violence or violence generally. That is not in our capacity to 
do.
  I will tell you something. If there were a bridge collapse on an 
interstate in my State, we would be there immediately, trying to figure 
out how to fix the highways of our State. If there were an epidemic, we 
would be immediately figuring out how to come up with a vaccine.
  When we have this repetitive catastrophe of gun deaths in this 
country, then we also have to be challenged to act. I applaud my 
Governor for recognizing that and pulling my legislature back on July 
9. I wish them the best.
  I hope we will do something here. We haven't had a meaningful debate 
about gun violence and gun safety regulations and laws on the floor of 
this body since April of 2013. I remember it well. I had just come to 
the Senate. It was almost precisely on the sixth anniversary of the 
shooting of Virginia Tech. We had a debate on the floor of the Senate 
about universal background checks, which 90 percent of Americans 
support. We had that debate in April of 2013. It was in the aftermath 
of the shooting at Sandy Hook. Little kids were massacred in their 
elementary school by these high-capacity weapons, and we had that 
debate.
  The families of many of the victims of Sandy Hook were sitting in the 
Gallery surrounding us. Some were sitting next to family members for 
Virginia Tech or other shootings who had come to provide them support. 
There is a beautiful phrase in the letter of Paul to the Hebrews that 
talks about being surrounded by a ``great cloud of witnesses.'' That 
day, we had an opportunity to act to keep Americans safer, and we were 
surrounded by a ``great cloud of witnesses'' who were sitting in the 
Gallery, just hoping that we might act to reduce the likelihood of 
crimes of this kind happening in the future, and we fell a few votes 
short. What a horrible day.
  You don't want to fall short on something that is important, and you 
especially don't want to fall short when people whose lives have been 
irradicably torn up by violence are sitting around, hoping that you 
will do the right thing. Yet we fell a few votes short.
  We have an opportunity now. We can return--it is interesting, isn't 
it? I am thinking of the pages who have been here most recently. We 
haven't had that discussion for the last 6 years. There have been a lot 
of shootings in the last 6 years. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the 
shooting at the Pulse nightclub where 49 people were killed. We had the 
shooting at the Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people. More than 50 
people were gunned down in a concert in Las Vegas. There were shootings 
at synagogues in California and Pittsburgh, shootings in Christian 
churches in Charleston--gun crime after gun crime in neighborhoods, 
suicides facilitated by guns, children finding loaded guns that were 
unlocked and killing themselves or killing or wounding others. There 
has been tragedy

[[Page S3311]]

after tragedy after tragedy. Yet there has not been a debate on the 
floor of the Senate since April of 2013.
  I think it is time to have a debate. Guess what. We have an 
opportunity. There are two bills that have been passed by the House, by 
strong margins, that are now pending before this body. I ask that the 
Senate leadership allow us to have debates and votes on these bills.

  One is a bill that would require background checks on all firearm 
sales in the country. There is a bipartisan consensus that certain 
people should not have weapons--felons, folks adjudicated mentally ill 
and dangerous, folks who are subjected to domestic violence protective 
orders. Yet the only way we can enforce those laws is by having a 
working background check system to make sure that before a weapon gets 
put into somebody's hand, we ensure that he is not prohibited from 
having a weapon.
  One of the House bills would make the national background check 
system universal. We should take that bill up and debate it and vote on 
it on the floor of the greatest deliberative body in the world, the 
U.S. Senate.
  The second bill that is pending here also deals with the background 
check system and deals with the quirk that has been known as the 
Charleston loophole. Just like with the Virginia Tech shooter, he got 
his weapons but shouldn't have been able to have gotten them because of 
his mental health adjudication. He got them because of there being a 
weakness in the background check system. In Charleston, another 
weakness showed itself. The individual who got the weapons and 
perpetrated that horrible atrocity in the church was not able to get a 
weapon, but there was a problem with the background check system. 
Current Federal law says, if you try to buy a weapon and then the 
background check is run on you and the check isn't done in 3 weeks, 
they have to put the weapon in your hand even though the check isn't 
done, even though you are prohibited from having a weapon. If they 
can't do it in 3 weeks, you get the weapon even though it is illegal 
for you to have the weapon. What kind of sense does that make? That is 
known as the Charleston loophole.
  The House has passed a bill that would end that, that would say that 
you don't get the weapon until it has been confirmed that you are 
legally able to have that weapon. That bill is in the Senate right now, 
and we should be able to take it up.
  I hope we will take up Federal legislation that I have filed with 
others to restrict high-capacity magazines to 10 rounds. I have 
introduced these bills in the past. So often, the police stop a lethal 
shooting, not at the start but when somebody is changing out a 
magazine. That gives some precious seconds to trained law enforcement 
officers to stop a crime before it gets worse. In the Parkland shooting 
in Florida last year, police stopped the shooter because, as he was 
changing out the weapon, putting in the next magazine--he was not a 
trained marksman--he jammed the gun. That was what enabled the police 
to stop him or the carnage there would have been worse.
  I would like to ban high-capacity magazines and limit them to 10. We 
should be able to do this because we already do it. In Virginia, as in 
virtually every State, we have a magazine limit. We put a limit on the 
number of rounds you can put in a magazine if you are hunting a bird 
or, in many States, if you are hunting a deer. Why do we have 
limitations on magazines that are used by hunters? Because it wouldn't 
be fair to the animal. It would not be fair to an animal to allow 
somebody with a high-capacity magazine to hunt it.
  Are our sensibilities about animals so different than they are about 
humans? Do we want to protect animals more than we want to protect 
humans? If we accept bans and limitations on magazines that are used in 
hunting, why wouldn't we embrace a well-crafted limitation on high-
capacity magazines that go into weapons that aren't for hunting animals 
but that are designed to kill or to wound people?
  I think Congress can encourage State, local, and Tribal governments 
to adopt extreme risk protection orders that would remove firearms from 
the hands of individuals who exhibit signs of mental health crises--
weapons that can be returned to them once the signs of crises are over. 
I also hope we will consider legislation--Senator Klobuchar of 
Minnesota has promoted this for years--to prevent domestic abusers from 
keeping guns.
  The bottom line is this. After each tragedy, we have an opportunity 
to learn and improve. There are Americans, even those who support guns 
in my State and even NRA members, who strongly support many of the 
commonsense measures that I have mentioned. The question is, Are we 
just going to keep offering platitudes or are we going to act to 
actually protect our communities?
  Finally, after a high-profile shooting, it is common for us to offer 
thoughts and prayers to the victims. Some people get mad about that. I 
don't. That is really important. We should be offering thoughts and 
prayers to victims. It is an instinctive and common response that is a 
good response, and we should do it.
  We also ask questions about perpetrators. What was the motive? Why 
did the person do this? We have a lot of unanswered questions about the 
city employee who shot 12 people in Virginia Beach--answers that we 
don't know and, in some instances, may never know. We don't yet have a 
good explanation for the motivation, for example, of the shooter who 
killed more than 50 people in Las Vegas.
  Yet, while thoughts and prayers for victims are appropriate and 
questions about perpetrators are appropriate, I think what the rest of 
us ought to do is look in the mirror and ask some questions about 
ourselves. It is hard for evil to exist in the world sometimes if there 
aren't bystanders. For most of the evil that exists in the world, there 
are bystanders who could stop it. Sadly, in recent years, the Congress 
of the United States and my State legislature have been bystanders.
  There are questions that we have to ask ourselves as we have bills 
pending in the Senate that could be considered right now after the 
latest one of these tragedies. Are we going to continue to be 
bystanders? Will we respond to these tragedies with more than just 
thoughts and prayers when there are steps to be taken that we know will 
keep people safer? Will we have a meaningful debate and, hopefully, 
find a path forward with regard to them or will we continue the kind of 
gag rule that we will not take these matters up and not talk about 
them?
  Those are the questions that are on the floor for the body, and I 
hope that the Senate will show courage and leadership in addressing 
these matters.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes 
following the first vote in this series be 10 minutes in length.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Under the previous order, all postcloture time is expired.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Morrison 
nomination?
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Iowa (Ms. Ernst), and 
the Senator from Nebraska (Mrs. Fischer).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Alexander) would have voted ``yea.''
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 89, nays 7, as follows:

[[Page S3312]]

  


                      [Rollcall Vote No. 149 Ex.]

                                YEAS--89

     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Braun
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Collins
     Coons
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Cramer
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hawley
     Heinrich
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Hyde-Smith
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Jones
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     McSally
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Romney
     Rosen
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott (FL)
     Scott (SC)
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Sinema
     Smith
     Stabenow
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--7

     Blumenthal
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Klobuchar
     Markey
     Sanders
     Warren

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Alexander
     Booker
     Ernst
     Fischer
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
reconsider is considered made and laid upon the table, and the 
President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

                          ____________________