[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.