[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 145 (Wednesday, September 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5422-S5428]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Background Checks
Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, I am going to be joined on the floor over
the course of about an hour or so by Members of the Senate who are
desperate for our colleagues to wake up and recognize that the time for
action to quell the epidemic of gun violence in this country is now. It
was also last week. It was also a month ago and a year ago and 6 years
ago. It was also nearly 7 years ago, after the shooting in my State of
Connecticut that felled 20 little 6- and 7-year-olds attending first
grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
We tend to pay attention to the mass shootings--the ones in Odessa,
El Paso, Dayton, and Newtown--but every single day in this country, 93
people die from gunshot wounds. Most of those are suicides, but many of
them are homicides, and others are accidental shootings. When you total
it up, we are losing about 33,000 people every year from gun violence
and gunshot wounds.
Those numbers may not be that meaningful to you because it is a big
country, but how does that compare to the rest of the world or at least
the rest of the high-income world? Well, that is about 10 times higher
than other countries of similar income and of similar situation as the
United States. Something different is happening here. It is not that we
have more mental illness. It is not that we have less mental health
treatment. It is not that we have less resources going into law
enforcement. The difference is that we have guns spread out all over
this Nation, many of them illegal and many of them of a caliber and
capacity that were designed for the military in which this slaughter
becomes predictable. We have a chance to do something about it right
now in the U.S. Congress. We have a chance to try to find some way to
come together over some commonsense measures.
I just got off the phone--a 40-minute conversation with the President
of the United States. I was glad that he was willing to take that
amount of time with me, Senator Manchin, and Senator Toomey to talk
about whether we can figure out a way to get Republicans and Democrats
on board with a proposal to expand background checks to more gun sales
in this Nation. In particular, we were talking about expanding
background checks to commercial gun sales. That is certainly not as far
as I would like to go, but I understand that part of my job here is to
argue for my beliefs and my convictions but then try to find a
compromise.
There is no single legislative initiative that will solve all of
these issues, but what we know is, if you want to take the biggest bite
out of gun crime as quickly as possible, increasing the number of
background checks done in this country is the way to go. All we are
trying to do here is make sure that when you buy a gun, you prove that
you aren't someone with a serious criminal history or that you aren't
someone who has a serious history of mental illness.
In 2017, about 170,000 people in this country went into a store,
tried to buy a gun, and were denied that sale because they had an
offense on their record or a period of time in an inpatient psychiatric
unit, which prohibited them from buying a gun. Of those 170,000 sales
that were denied, 39 percent of them were convicted felons who had
tried to come in and buy a gun, many of them knowing they were likely
prohibited from buying those guns.
The problem is, that isn't a barrier to buying a weapon--being denied
a sale at a gun store. Why do we know that? It is because just a few
weeks ago in Texas, a gunman who went in and shot up 7 people who died
and 23 who were injured failed a background check because he had been
diagnosed by a clinician as mentally ill and had triggered one of those
prohibiting clauses, but then he went and bought the gun from a private
seller, knowing that he wouldn't have to go through a background check
if he bought the weapon from a place in Texas that didn't have
[[Page S5423]]
a background check attached to it. He then took that weapon and turned
it on civilians.
This happens over and over again every single day. Estimates are that
at least 20 percent of all gun sales in this country happen without a
background check. These aren't gifts of guns to a relative or a loaner
to somebody who is going to go and use it for hunting on a Saturday or
Sunday; this is about legitimate commercial transactions, 20 percent of
which, when they involve guns, happen without a background check.
We also have plenty of data from States that have decided to expand
background checks to make them universal. States requiring universal
background checks for all gun sales have homicide rates that are 15
percent lower than States that don't have those laws.
In Connecticut, we have research showing that when we extended
background checks to all gun sales through a local permitting process,
we had a 40-percent reduction in gun homicide rates. Compare that with
the State of Missouri, which repealed its permitting law, which was
their way of making sure that everybody who buys a gun has to get a
background check. They saw a 23-percent increase in firearm homicides
immediately after they started allowing people to buy guns without a
background check.
There is your data. It is pretty incontrovertible. You can get pretty
immediate and serious returns--safety returns--if you expand background
checks to all gun purchases. But the benefit to a U.S. Senator who has
to go back for reelection every 6 years is that not only are background
checks as a legislative initiative impactful, they are also very
politically popular. In fact, very few things are more popular than
expanding background checks to more gun sales.
Ninety percent of Americans want universal background checks. Apple
pie is not that popular. Baseball is not that popular. Background
checks are. You are not going to get in trouble with your constituents
if you vote to expand background checks to all commercial sales or all
private sales in this country. You are going to get rewarded
politically if you do that. I don't argue that that is the reason you
vote for background checks, but I think you should accept the plaudits
that will come to you from your constituents if you support this
measure.
I don't think the President has made up his mind yet. After spending
about 40 minutes on the phone with him this afternoon, I don't know
that the President is convinced yet that he should support universal
background checks.
I was with the President right after the Parkland shooting, and he
said he would support universal background checks, and then he didn't
support them after speaking to representatives of the gun lobby. I am
sure the gun lobby will come in and talk to the President this
afternoon or tomorrow and try to explain to him why he should once
again endorse the status quo.
The status quo is not acceptable to Americans in this country. People
are sick and tired of feeling unsafe when they walk into a Walmart.
Parents are heartbroken when their children come home and tell them
about the latest active-shooter drill they participated in. I know that
from direct experience, having listened to my then-kindergartner tell
me about being stuffed into a tiny bathroom with 25 of his other
colleagues and told by his teacher to remain as quiet as possible
because they were practicing what would happen if a stranger came into
their school. Some of the kids knew what it was really about and some
of them didn't, but my 7-year-old--6 years old at the time--knew enough
to say to me: ``Daddy, I didn't like it.'' No child should have to fear
for their safety when they walk to school.
I am not saying that universal background checks can solve all of our
gun violence issues in this country. I will say that beyond the lives
that it will save, it will also send a message to our children and to
families in this country that we are not encased in concrete, that we
are trying our best to reach out across the aisle and come to some
conclusion to at least save some lives.
I will tell you that peace of mind, that moral signal of compassion
and concern that we will send, will have a value, as well, next to and
beside the actual lives we will save.
Leilah Hernandez was 15 years old. She was a high school student when
she was shot by the gunman in Odessa, TX. Her grandmother Nora
explained how Leilah would spend a lot of her time with family and
would drop by after school to visit her grandmother. She described
Leilah as a happy girl who adored her parents. She was described at her
funeral as ``a naturally shy girl who became a quiet leader on the
basketball court.''
Lois Oglesby was 27 when she was killed in the Dayton shooting. Her
friend Derasha Merrett said: ``She was a wonderful mother, a wonderful
person.'' According to the children's father, Oglesby face-timed him
after she was shot, saying ``Babe, I just got shot in my head. I need
to get to my kids.'' She died that day in Dayton.
Jordan and Andre Anchondo were 25 and 23 years old when they were
amongst the 22 who were killed in El Paso. The couple had dropped their
5-year-old daughter at cheer practice, and then they went to Walmart to
pick up some back-to-school supplies. Their 2-month-old son Paul was
with them. He survived the shooting, probably because it looks like
Jordan died shielding her baby, while Andre jumped in front of the two
of them. The baby was found under Jordan's body and miraculously
suffered only two broken fingers.
On August 31 in Buffalo, NY, Norzell Aldridge saw an altercation
happening from a distance. He went over to the altercation to try to
defuse the situation. He was a youth league football coach. As he tried
to deal with this altercation, he was shot and killed. One of his
friends said: ``The guy died a hero trying to save somebody else's
life.'' One of the folks who work in football with him said: ``His
legacy will always be never give up, give it your all, and now his
legacy is through his son.''
You haven't heard of Norzell because he didn't die in a mass
shooting. He is just one of the routine gun murders that happen every
single day in this country. It matters just as much as those that
occurred in El Paso and Dayton and Odessa, and we can do something
about those right now.
I am begging the President to come to the table and agree to a
commonsense background checks expansion bill that will save lives. I am
begging my colleagues here to do the same--figure out a way to get to
yes. There is no political liability in it for you. There are thousands
and thousands of lives to be saved.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am honored to follow my colleague
from Connecticut after his powerful and eloquent description of the
lives that have been lost, the stakes of this decision, and the clear
path we have--an opportunity and an obligation to save lives.
Let me begin where he ended. The President of the United States has
an obligation here to lead. If he does, we will have legislation that
will literally save thousands of lives. He has an obligation, as we do,
to find a way to save these lives.
All of us have seen all too often the needless, senseless, and
unspeakable tragedy done by gun violence. We focus on the mass
killings, but those 90 deaths a day consist of the drive-by, one-by-one
shootings in Hartford and New Haven and Bridgeport and cities and towns
and communities around the country. No one is immune. No family is
untouched, through friends and relatives and workplaces and through
suicides, which are a major part of those 90 deaths every day in this
country. Domestic violence is made five times more deadly when there is
a gun in the home.
The President must not only come to the table but lead. And if he
will not lead, get out of the way because we have an obligation to move
forward now and take advantage of this historic opportunity and
obligation.
Just weeks ago, in one 24-hour period, massacres in El Paso and
Dayton left 31 people dead. Eleven days ago, a shooter in Odessa, TX,
killed another seven. Communities are forever changed by these events,
and so is our Nation. The trauma and the stress done in schools to our
children by the drills they conduct, by the anticipation that
[[Page S5424]]
is raised, by the fear that is engendered--the sights and sounds of gun
violence echo and reverberate across our land.
I remember the sights and sounds of the parents at the firehouse in
Sandy Hook on that horrible day in 2012 when 20 beautiful children and
sixth grade educators died. The firehouse is where parents went to find
out whether their children were OK. The way they found out was either
their children appeared or they did not.
For them, in the cries and sobbing they experienced, the expressions
of anguish, the look on those faces, it was only the beginning of their
nightmare. It transformed Connecticut. What we did in Connecticut was
adopt commonsense measures and comprehensive steps to stop gun
violence.
The lesson of Connecticut is not only that those steps have reduced
gun violence, including homicide, but also that States with the
strongest laws are still at the mercy of the ones with the weakest
because guns have no respect for State boundaries. They cross State
lines, and they do damage and death in States like Connecticut with
strong gun laws. Through the Iron Pipeline, it comes from other States
to our south.
Since that day at Sandy Hook, there have been 2,218 mass shootings in
the United States, and over 2,000 times, parents have sat, as did those
parents at Sandy Hook, and waited to know whether their children were
OK--children who left in the morning with no inkling about the violence
that was to unfold.
There is no reason people have to live this way in the United States
of America. America has no greater proportion of mental health issues
than any other country. We have a higher rate of gun violence. We can
prevent it through commonsense steps and comprehensive steps that will
save as many lives as possible as quickly as possible by keeping guns
out of the hands of dangerous people. That is the principle of the two
main proposals likely to come before this body.
To keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, do it through
background checks, which have to apply universally to all States for
them to be effective. Experts estimate that 80 percent of firearms
acquired for criminal purposes are obtained from unlicensed sellers,
and a recent study found that States that have universal background
check laws experienced 52 percent fewer mass shootings. Background
checks prevent people who are dangerous to themselves or others from
buying firearms, and, likewise, emergency risk protection orders take
guns away from people who are dangerous to themselves or others. These
two concepts have a common goal, the same end. They achieve it by
complementary means.
The vast majority of perpetrators of mass violence exhibit clear
signs that they are about to carry out an attack. The shooter in
Parkland, as my colleague Senator Lindsey Graham has said, all but took
out an ad in the newspaper saying that he was going to kill people at
that school in Parkland. The police were repeatedly alerted to his
violent behavior, including a call from a family member who begged the
police to recover his weapon.
Today, in Florida, she could ask for an extreme risk protection order
under a Florida law signed by my colleague Senator Scott when he was
Governor. In the 17 jurisdictions that have passed emergency risk
protection order laws, enforcers can petition courts to temporarily
restrict access to firearms with due process.
At a hearing this morning in the Judiciary Committee, we learned from
one of the judges in Broward County who enforce these laws that they
have worked to prevent shootings, including many suicides, and they
enable mental health help to be available as well. These laws prevent
suicide. The majority of those gun deaths in the United States, in
fact, are suicide, which is accounting for 60 percent of those 90
people killed every day.
Emergency risk protection orders are effective, but they are resource
intensive, and that is why Senator Graham and I have worked hard and we
are close to finalizing a measure that will provide grants and
incentives to other States that are considering or may consider these
kinds of laws. Together with Senator Graham, I have been working hard
on this legislation, and we are close--after extensive discussion, not
only between us but with the White House and with our colleagues--to a
bill that can muster bipartisan support and pass this body.
The Charleston loophole must be closed. I have been leading that
fight in the Senate to fix this problem for years. The House passed
bipartisan legislation on background checks, H.R. 8, and on the
Charleston loophole that would fix the problem of would-be murderers
having access to guns simply because information is unavailable within
the time limit that is set.
Guns should not be sold simply because a deadline for a background
check is not met. Most are done literally within seconds or a minute,
but some require more extensive work. There is no reason to wait to
pass these measures.
Neither should we wait to pass a safe storage bill that we believe
would have prevented deaths like Ethan Song's perishing in Guilford.
This past January, Ethan Song would have celebrated his 16th birthday,
but a year earlier, he was accidentally killed by a gun stored in his
friend's closet, accessible to him and a friend. Like Kristen and Mike
Song, thousands of other families across America lose children in gun
violence every year. It is a parent's worst nightmare, and, in many
cases, safe storage, including possibly Sandy Hook, would have
prevented a mountain of heartache and a river of tears.
The Songs have been so strong and courageous, as have been the
survivors of the victims' families in Sandy Hook. They have been the
powerful faces and voices of this effort and the most effective
advocates.
The groups that have been formed in these past years, raising
awareness and mobilizing every town--Guilford, Brady, Newtown Action
Alliance, Sandy Hook Promise, Connecticut Against Gun Violence, Moms
Demand Action, and Students Demand Action are only some of them. They
are mounting a political movement, and we need to hear them.
History will judge us harshly if we fail to heed that call for
commonsense reform. The voters will judge harshly, as well, the
colleagues who fail to heed that call.
We need to keep in mind that gun violence is not one problem. There
is no one solution. There is no panacea. We need to aim at all of these
measures, including a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity
magazines. The House, just this week, approved a ban on high-capacity
magazines, as well as an emergency risk protection order statute.
Gun violence is many problems--not one. It is the loopholes in the
background check system; it is the failure to safely store firearms; it
is an arbitrary deadline for completing a background check; and it is
the lack of emergency risk protection orders that take guns away from
people who are dangerous to themselves or others with due process.
I have worked on this issue for more than two decades--almost three
decades since I was attorney general first elected in the State of
Connecticut. There has been progress. The progress has achieved
results. Now it is this body's obligation to take that next step, and I
implore the President of the United States to state his support, which
my colleagues across the aisle have said is necessary for them to do
what they think is responsible. I say to them: If the President fails
to lead, you must do so.
We must continue to fight and never give up and never go away for the
sake of the survivors and families who said from this Gallery when we
failed to act in the wake of Sandy Hook: Shame.
Shame on us, in fact, if we fail to act.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, I join with many of my colleagues to make
a pretty simple request, and that is, the issue of gun violence in this
country requires us to take action.
The Senate needs to do what it has historically been in place to do.
The Presiding Officer is in his first term, and I am in my third term.
The U.S. Senate is the place in which we debate and vote on issues, the
greatest deliberative body in the world--at least that is what I
thought I was running for.
It is time for Leader McConnell to bring up gun safety legislation--
well
[[Page S5425]]
past time to bring up gun safety legislation--and for us to act and do
something about gun violence in this country.
Yes, we hope the President will lead, will provide that leadership
that we hear about after every one of these mass shootings--that the
President is engaged. We need his leadership to bring us together on
sensible gun safety legislation, but if not, we still have the
responsibility here in this body to act. We call upon Leader McConnell
to bring forward sensible gun safety legislation.
The United States is an outlier on gun violence. When you compare the
amount of gun violence in the United States to that in the other
developed countries of the world, in every category, multiply it times
10, 20, or 30--more likely for gun violence episodes here in the United
States than other developed countries of the world.
We have far more private ownership of guns in this country than other
industrial nations of the world. We have far more mass killings. We
have far more gun-related suicides, and the list goes on and on and on.
So we need to take action. This is one area where we don't want to be
the outlier. We want safe communities, and inaction is not an answer.
Yes, there are many things we could do. Look, the people of Maryland
and the people throughout this country have been victims of this gun
violence. In my own State of Maryland, we had a mass shooting in June
of last year at the Capital Gazette--outrageous. People trying to do
their jobs were killed. We have had, of course, school shootings. It is
time for this Congress to take steps to reduce this risk. Inaction is
not an option.
What should we do? As my previous colleague said, there are a lot of
things we should be doing. We should take a look at whether it is
reasonable for there to be private ownership of military-style weapons.
I think there shouldn't be. That is certainly a bill we can bring up.
We have seen these assault weapons used in a lot of mass attacks,
where you have multiple casualties in a matter of seconds, where there
is no possibility for law enforcement to respond to keep people safe
during that short period of time.
We should get rid of the high-capacity magazines. I know the House is
working on that. That is something that, again, is not necessary for
the purposes of recreation.
We should identify extreme-risk individuals and be able to put a flag
on their ability to purchase a weapon. We need to invest in mental
health. All of that is important.
The bill we can pass today is a universal background check. The House
has passed it. It has been here since February of this year. For 7
months, that bill has been here--universal background checks. It was
passed with a strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives
and is consistent with the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has said
the right is not absolute, that certain individuals are not entitled to
have firearms because of what they have done.
Since 1968, we have provided forms to determine whether individuals
are entitled to own a firearm or not. Of course, in 1993, we passed the
presale process for licensed dealers because that is where guns were
being purchased back in 1993. So if you buy a gun from a licensed
firearms dealer, you have to go through the National Instant Criminal
Background Check System. As my colleague has said, it takes a matter of
seconds. You can get cleared or not cleared, and it works. Three
million guns have been denied a transfer as a result of this check, but
there are loopholes in it because of the way commerce is handled today.
It doesn't cover private sales. Internet sales weren't even available
back when we passed these laws. We have to close those loopholes, and
it will save lives. States that have closed these loopholes have a
lower amount of gun violence than those States that have not.
We need a national answer to this. A person from Maryland can go into
Virginia or West Virginia where the laws are different. We need one
Federal law to deal with closing this loophole.
Today and every day in this country 100 people are killed through gun
violence--every single day. We can't wait. We have to act. That is what
this body is best at.
So I encourage President Trump to lead on this issue. I know he had
some meetings this week. I encourage our leader to allow this body to
take up the universal background check bill that passed the House of
Representatives by a strong bipartisan vote. Let us get that done. Let
us tell the people of this country that we will not be silent and we
will not be inactive in regard to the amount of gun violence in this
country.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mrs. GILLIBRAND. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues in
discussing our country's horrific gun violence epidemic. I have risen
to speak of this problem many times over the years, and to be honest it
is exasperating to have to do it over and over again.
El Paso, Dayton, Gilroy, Odessa, Midland, Brownsville in New York--
the list goes on and on--city after city, community after community,
devastated by gun violence. We witness these tragedies. We watch
heartbreaking and nightmarish footage on our televisions. We offer our
thoughts and prayers. We have heavy hearts, deep disappointment and
horror, and still nothing. The Senate has still not passed any
meaningful legislation to address the problem.
So here we are once again in this Chamber. Democrats are speaking out
on behalf of the American people, on behalf of the citizens who are
protesting and demanding action, and on behalf of our constituents who
call and write and tweet to us every single day for commonsense
legislation to help end this gun violence that plagues our communities.
We aren't just speaking out on behalf of Democrats because gun
violence doesn't ask what political party you support. It touches the
lives of everyone in this country. The majority of the American
people--Democrats, Independents, and Republicans--all want action. They
want their schools to be safe. They want a place to go and worship and
be safe. They want to go and buy their back-to-school supplies and be
safe.
Let's be really clear about the root of this inaction. It is greed.
It is corruption. It is the rot at the heart of Washington. The NRA is
no different. The NRA cares more about gun sales than they do about the
people of this country. They care more about the gun manufacturers than
they do our communities. Too many of my colleagues just don't have the
guts to stand up to the NRA.
There are three effective solutions sitting right in front of us, all
of which are bipartisan, all of which have been voted on before,
getting lots of bipartisan support. I reject the false argument that
because these commonsense proposals may not stop every single instance
of gun violence that it is not worth doing them. We should do these. It
makes no sense to stop doing the commonsense things just because it
doesn't stop every gun crime because the truth is, it is time to do
something.
We can and should ban assault weapons and large magazines. No
civilian needs access to weapons of war. Those weapons are designed
solely to kill large numbers of people very quickly, in minutes and
seconds, and our military train heavily to be able to use those weapons
well.
We can and should pass my legislation to criminalize gun trafficking.
It will help slow the tide of illegal guns into cities like New York
and Chicago and across the country where guns that are illegal are sold
directly out of the back of a truck to a gang member or a criminal. It
is one of the things that law enforcement keeps asking us to do and
have been asking for a decade.
We can and should pass the red flag laws that are designed to make
sure people with violent tendencies cannot have access to guns, but the
first and most obvious solution should be a cakewalk for this Chamber,
and that is universal background checks. This solution is supported by
the vast majority of Americans. A great bipartisan bill has already
passed our House, but it is not even being considered right now for a
vote in the Senate.
So it is really on Senator McConnell right now. It is on him. It is
his decision whether to protect our communities or not--to just protect
our kids.
As a mom, when there was a shooting less than a mile from Theo and
Henry's
[[Page S5426]]
school, all I could think about was getting there as fast as I possibly
could just to make sure my child was safe. That is the fear every
parent in America has today. We shouldn't accept living in an America
where we have to worry that our kids aren't safe in school, where they
are actually doing shelter-in-place drills instead of mathematical
drills. We shouldn't accept that world. We shouldn't accept a world
where you can't be at Bible study with your friends. We shouldn't
accept a world where you can't go to a concert or go to a movie and
know that you are safe, but that is the world we are living in.
The truth about all of this is, right now at this moment, we have
Americans who are fueled by hate hunting down other people with weapons
of war. That has to change.
We do have the will to do this. Congress can show courage. Congress
can do the right thing, so why not do it now, when the American people
are begging us to just have an ounce of strength in our spines, just an
ounce of courage to stand up to special interests, to greed and
corruption and lies that distort this debate.
We are bigger than this. We are stronger than this. We are better
than this. Let's protect our kids.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.
Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the same issue my
colleague from New York just spoke to, and I know others have preceded
her on the floor. I am grateful to be a part of this discussion today.
What I could do--but I know I don't have to because it is so well
known now--is go through the three or four most recent mass shootings
which are the ones that get most attention, but I don't have to do that
because we know so well now what happened just in the last number of
weeks.
One way to remember them, of course, is by the names of the
communities: El Paso, Dayton, Midland, Odessa--names like that where
everyone in the country knows exactly what we are talking about because
of what happened there. What we don't talk about enough, of course, are
the places where there is daily gun violence and horror and tragedy and
death and grievous injury because it doesn't get the same attention.
Tragically, another way to go through a list of tragedies that are
connected to this awful epidemic of gun violence--this uniquely
American problem of gun violence--is to use numbers. These numbers are
now emblazoned on the communities that were so tragically destroyed, in
large measure, by these events. In El Paso it was 22, in Dayton it was
9, and in Midland and Odessa it was 7. So doing the math, that is 38.
That is the number of people killed in just three places. Of course,
there are a lot of other deaths between those tragic events which
aren't getting the same attention. That is another way to measure--38
killed between August 3 and August 31. Another number is the number of
injured. I think the number now is just about 76, just in those three
tragedies. So there were 38 killed and 76 injured in three American
communities.
One of the most disturbing realities after the fact is what happened
in Dayton in just such a short timeframe. I know that timeframe. We
could probably cite the other tragedies as well, but we know that in
about 32 seconds in Dayton, 9 people were killed and 27 were injured.
Law enforcement, the folks we often call the good guys--good guys not
just with guns but good guys with a lot of training and a heroic
willingness and heroic commitment to get to a place of danger to try to
apprehend a criminal and to try to save people. In Dayton, law
enforcement officials got there faster than Superman could get there,
and it wasn't fast enough because in 32 seconds 9 were gone and 27 were
injured.
We know that in Midland and Odessa, TX, the authorities reported that
the gunman was prohibited from purchasing a firearm at one point, but
he was able to avoid a background check because he purchased his
assault-style weapon through a private sale. This is further evidence
of why we need a background check bill that is rigorous--not just a
background check bill that makes a nice headline but is rigorous enough
to stop the guy in Texas who brought such horror to that community,
including, as one of the wounded, a 17-month-old child.
We also know that through the month of August, in that same time
period I mentioned, the 3rd to the 31st--but if you include every day
of that month, the United States has experienced 38 mass shootings. So
there were 38 times when four or more people were involved, which is
the definition of a mass shooting.
When I think about it in terms of the scale of it--and I don't think
there is anyone who would disagree with this--this is a public health
epidemic, and it is plaguing our cities and our communities every
single day. What we are talking about, in terms of the perpetrators of
this violence, they are not just criminals, they are domestic
terrorists, and we should call them that. That is what they are. We
shouldn't try to remember their names or, frankly, even speak their
names, but we should remember what they are: domestic terrorists who
are, frankly, in terms of the whole scale of the problem, causing more
problems in America than any other terrorists are causing. These
domestic terrorists are using high-powered, military-style assault
weapons to kill our children and to kill our families.
We know that last October, the most deadly active violence against
the Jewish community in American history occurred at the Tree of Life
synagogue in the city of Pittsburgh. Eleven were killed there and six
were injured, including four of the six being law enforcement officers
who, again, got there very quickly--maybe not in seconds but in
minutes. Of course, getting there that fast, with all of their
training, all of their courage, and all of their commitment, was not
fast enough because even though they got there in just minutes, that
wasn't fast enough because of the nature of the weapon and because of
the assailant.
How about Philadelphia? The two biggest cities in my home State are
Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Philadelphia being the largest. Days
before the horrible weekend of El Paso and Dayton, a mass shooting
occurred in Southwest Philadelphia that left a 21-year-old dead and
five others injured. Because only one person was killed, it is not
ranked as a mass shooting. That happened in that same timeframe.
On August 14, an individual in North Philadelphia barricaded himself
in a house and shot six police officers with an assault-style weapon.
The shootout lasted nearly 8 hours and prompted a local childcare
center to shelter in place for hours. I was at that childcare center
just a few days later. Watching it on the news, I had envisioned a
geographic distance of a lot more than it was. When I walked just to
the side of the building where the childcare center was and looked
across the street, it was closer than the width of this room we are in
today. When you go out the back door of the childcare center, it was
within feet across a very narrow street from where the shooter was
barricaded. In this instance, you have one shooter in a house with a
high-powered weapon who is able to hold off a number of law enforcement
officials for hours at a time. That is just one example of the power of
the weapon.
The issue of gun violence is a uniquely American problem. No country
has the same problem on this scale. America has never had a problem
like this in its history. It is uniquely American and unique in
American history itself.
Some in Congress want to surrender to this problem. The argument is
that there is nothing we can do except better enforcement of existing
law. I don't think most Americans believe that--nor should they--
because there is certainly more we can do. To have a position that I
would say is a surrender to the problem, you would have to argue that
the most powerful Nation in the history of the world can do absolutely
nothing--except maybe tighten up a law by way of enforcement--that we
can do absolutely nothing to confront this problem.
No one is arguing that if we passed a background check bill here or
an extreme risk protection order bill that somehow the problem would
magically begin to decline. No one is arguing that. But there is
certainly something we can do to reduce the likelihood and we would
hope substantially reduce the likelihood of more mass shootings. If we
passed two bills in the Senate that
[[Page S5427]]
became law and 25 years from now, one mass shooting was prevented, it
would be worth every minute of that effort and every degree of energy
expended in furtherance of passing that legislation.
We have been talking about this for a long time just in the recent
past. We now know that it is more than 195 days since the House passed
H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019.
As I referred to earlier, in the Odessa-Midland shooting, we know
that our Nation now needs a national background checks bill in order to
make all Americans safer from the horrors of gun violence.
Reports indicate that in 2018 alone, 1.2 million firearm classified
ads were posted on armslist.com that did not require a background check
before purchase. This is a big loophole that helps feed an illegal
underground gun market in cities and communities across our country. If
implemented, the universal background checks bill known as H.R. 8 would
close this loophole, requiring background checks for all firearm sales
between private parties. We also know that since 1994, background
checks have prevented 3.5 million gun sales to dangerous criminals and
others prohibited from owning a gun.
I have to ask again, are we to surrender to this problem? I don't
think so. I think most Americans don't want to surrender to it. What
they want is for us to take action. They are a little bit tired of just
speeches and debate. They may want a little more debate, but they want
votes. They want us to be debating and voting several times at least,
if not more so.
This is a grave, difficult challenge to confront, but the commitment
to confronting it is a mission that I think is worthy of a great
country. I ask Majority Leader McConnell to give the Senate the
opportunity to debate and vote on first the universal background checks
bill, H.R. 8. And I am sure there will be other versions of that in the
debate, and that is fine. We should debate all of them and vote on all
of them and debate and vote on an extreme risk protection bill.
I would argue we should do more than that. We should have a series of
commonsense gun measures to be debated and voted on, even if we are
likely to know the outcome, because the American people expect that
this uniquely American problem and the scale of it are worthy of that
debate and worthy of those votes.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). The Senator from Virginia.
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I also rise to talk about gun violence. I
express my appreciation for our Republican colleagues. Those of us on
this side of the aisle feel very strongly about this issue. I
understand we have gone a little bit past the time. I will try to be
quick. I feel very strongly about it too.
Let me just talk about two Virginia tragedies, and let me tell the
story of a hero whose name we should all know. It has been interesting.
I sat on the Senate floor and listened to a number of my colleagues'
speeches. As they talked about gun violence and mass shooting in the
United States, very few have mentioned that 12 people were killed in
Virginia Beach in a mass shooting on May 31. They mentioned Odessa,
they mentioned El Paso, and they mentioned Dayton. Why not Virginia
Beach? Because there have been so many tragedies since May 31.
The Virginia Beach shooting of 11 governmental employees and a
contractor who was just there to get some permits for a building permit
he was seeking happened barely 3 months ago, but it has already receded
into the memory of virtually anybody outside of Virginia because the
gun tragedies since have been the ones that have crowded into our
minds.
The fact that that has been allowed to happen--that we are so used to
it now that the killing of 12 people in a mass shooting barely 3 months
ago escaped people's memories--tells us we have become used to a
situation we should never have been able to tolerate.
In the Virginia Beach shooting, one of the reasons 12 people were
killed quickly was the shooter used high-capacity magazines that would
contain dozens and dozens of munition, which made the rescue operation
conducted by brave first responders extremely difficult.
We say we care about our first responders. When I talk to our first
responders, they say: If you care about us, do something to restrict
high-capacity magazines. Don't you want us to be able to stop a
shooting in progress? Don't you want us to stop a murder and keep the
homicides and carnage down? It is hard to do it when we are up against
somebody with such a massive amount of firepower. If you care about
first responders, if you want us to stop crimes in process, then enable
us to put meaningful restrictions on high-capacity magazines.
I think that was a powerful lesson from the Virginia Beach shooting,
that had the magazines been smaller, they could have stopped the
carnage earlier. There may have been those injured or killed, but it
would have been less of a toll.
I want to point this out before moving to the next issue. As a
society, we tolerate high-capacity magazines. Many in this Chamber are
hunters. Many in this Chamber are familiar with hunting laws. In
Virginia, as in most States, there are rules that have been on the
books for years. If you hunt a deer in Virginia, we limit the amount of
rounds you can have in a rifle or shotgun. We put a limit, and that
limit has been accepted for decades. Why do we limit the size of
magazines in hunting animals? Because it wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't
be sportsmanlike. It wouldn't be humane to allow an animal to be hunted
with a magazine of near-unlimited capacity. If it is not humane to hunt
an animal with a massive magazine, then why allow near-unlimited
magazines to be used to hunt human beings? This is a rule we accept,
and we should accept it for weapons designed to hurt humans as well.
The second tragedy in Virginia occurred when I was Governor a number
of years ago--the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech. I won't go into it
because I will segue when I talk about a hero, but the shooting at
Virginia Tech happened because of a weakness in the background check
system. The individual, the young man, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32
people was prohibited from having a weapon because he had been
adjudicated mentally ill and dangerous, but weaknesses in the
background checks system enabled him to get a weapon anyway. We learned
a powerful and painful lesson that day, which is that if your
background check system has loopholes and gaps, disasters will result.
So I join with my colleagues who say H.R. 8--that has come from the
House and is a comprehensive background check system bill that keeps
weapons out of the hands of people who are dangers to themselves and
others--is something we should absolutely pass.
Last, let me tell the story about an American hero. I have told this
story on the floor before but not for a number of years. I want to tell
this story because I think everybody should know this individual's
name. The name of the hero I want to describe is a man named Liviu
Librescu.
Liviu Librescu was one of the 32 people who were killed at Virginia
Tech on April 16, 2007. Let me tell you about him. He was born in
Romania--and he was Jewish--during the Holocaust. When Germany occupied
Romania and began to take over the country, Jews were persecuted. Liviu
Librescu was then a young child. His family was sent to concentration
camps, and many of them perished just because they were Jewish. Liviu,
as a young child, was hidden by relatives and friends and miraculously
managed to survive the Nazi campaign of anti-Semitism against Jews.
Many Jews left Romania because they felt their neighbors and friends
didn't protect them. Liviu Librescu decided to stay. ``I am a Romanian
and am going to stay in Romania and make my country a peaceful place
where Jews can live in peace with their fellow men and women.''
He ran into a second problem. He went to the university. He was a
talented scientist and engineer. But then the Soviet Union moved in and
essentially occupied Romania. They punished him because he was Jewish
and because he wouldn't join the Communist Party. He was a world-
renowned engineer published in journals around the world. First, they
prohibited his ability to travel to academic conferences and then
prohibited his right to publish. Over the years, the
[[Page S5428]]
Soviet-dominated Government of Romania took away virtually every right
he had.
He started to try to figure out a way to immigrate to Israel. In the
early 1970s, at a time when some Eastern European Jews were allowed to
immigrate to Israel, Liviu Librescu finally escaped Soviet-dominated
communism after having survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel. It
was his dream.
Liviu Librescu was teaching at the Technion in Israel, one of the
premier scientific engineering institutions in the world. He got an
offer after a few years to come be a visiting professor in Blacksburg,
VA, at Virginia Tech for 1 year. He came in 1958. This Romanian Jew,
professor at an Israeli technical university, came to Blacksburg, VA,
in the mountains of Appalachia, for 1 year, and he fell in love with
Blacksburg. He stayed in Blacksburg, at Virginia Tech, for the rest of
his career.
On April 16, 2007, Liviu Librescu--now 22 years in Blacksburg--was
teaching an engineering class in one of the two buildings that were the
subject of the attack by the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho. On the morning of
April 16, 2007, he had undergraduates and graduates in the class. When
he heard shooting start in the classroom, he instinctively knew he
should protect his students. Liviu Librescu was now over 70 years old,
this Holocaust survivor.
He stood in front of the classroom door on the second floor of this
building and told the students: You have to jump out the window. I am
going to do everything I can to protect your life. Jump out the window.
He stood there in front of the classroom door and absorbed bullet
after bullet. Every student of Liviu Librescu's was able to escape from
that building, save one. There was one student who couldn't get out in
time and who had let others go first. Liviu Librescu was killed, and
one student in his class was killed, but he saved the lives of all of
these other young people.
April 16, 2007, was a day that was a very special day in Liviu
Librescu's life. Most in the classroom wouldn't have known it. That day
was Yom HaShoah, which is a day that occurs every year on the Hebrew
calendar and is a day that is celebrated and commemorated in Israel. It
is a day to commemorate, remember, and never forget the Holocaust. That
is what Yom HaShoah was. Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor, knew
what that day was. He knew what it meant. He made a choice.
The commemoration of the Holocaust is not just about remembering the
violent perpetrators and is not just about remembering the victims; it
is also about remembering that there wouldn't have been millions of
victims had there not been so many bystanders. That is what Yom HaShoah
is about. It is about victims, perpetrators, and also about bystanders
in that the Holocaust would never have happened had there not been so
many bystanders. What Liviu Librescu decided to do that day was not to
be a bystander. As violence was occurring around him, he decided: I
will not be a bystander. I will try to take an action to save someone's
life.
Think about it. He survived the Holocaust. Think about it. He
survived the Soviet takeover of his country. Then he came to this
Nation and loved it, but he could not survive the carnage of American
gun violence. He did, at least, decide he wouldn't be a bystander.
That is what we are called to do in the Senate of the United States--
not to be bystanders. We do not have to demonstrate the courage of a
Liviu Librescu and place our bodies in front of a classroom door and
absorb bullet after bullet to save somebody else's life. I don't think
I would have the courage to do that. I don't know how many of us would
have. We are not called to make a sacrifice of that magnitude, but I do
think we are called to make some sacrifices, and I do think we are
called not to be bystanders. If we are going to be true to that
calling, we have to be willing to take up and debate and to vote on
commonsense measures to keep Americans safe from gun violence.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.