[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 146 (Thursday, September 12, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5455-S5456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Background Checks

  Mr. President, on guns, yesterday, in an open letter to the Senate, 
the leaders of 145 companies--some of the most recognizable in our 
country--added their voices to the millions of Americans who want 
action on gun violence. Here are the words of these corporate leaders, 
hardly leftwing radicals: ``Doing nothing about America's gun violence 
crisis is simply unacceptable . . . the Senate must follow the House's 
lead by passing bipartisan legislation that would update the background 
checks law, helping to keep guns out of the hands of people who 
shouldn't have them.''
  They are correct, and the people who shouldn't have them, almost no 
one thinks they should. Should felons have guns? Should spousal abusers 
have guns? Should people adjudicated mentally ill have guns? Yet the 
enormous loopholes in the law allow them to have guns. Forty percent of 
the guns sold in America now are sold without background checks because 
they are sold either online or at gun shows.
  These corporate leaders are exactly right. They are not asking for 
anything radical. They are asking for something that 93 percent of the 
American people support.
  When it comes to gun safety legislation, no policy is a better 
starting point than universal background checks. We are certainly open 
to debating the finer points of legislation with our Republican 
colleagues, but we certainly will not settle for anything less than 
meaningful action to address gun violence. We know meaningful action 
begins with closing the loopholes in our background check system so 
guns don't fall into the wrong hands in the first place.
  After saying the issue of gun safety would be front and center when 
Congress returned, Leader McConnell has given no indication of when the 
Senate might have a debate. Instead, he has suggested it is up to the 
White House--a mercurial, inconsistent White House--to determine what, 
if any, legislation reaches the floor. Meanwhile, after Republicans met 
with President Trump at the White House this week, a few said President 
Trump was liable to let Congress take the lead.
  Well, Leader McConnell, President Trump, Republican Senators, it is 
the old Abbott and Costello routine again. They are going like this: 
Congressional Republicans point at the White House, the White House 
points at congressional Republicans, and nothing gets done.

[[Page S5456]]

  We know why nothing gets done. The public overwhelmingly--the vast 
majority of Americans, the vast majority of Republicans, the vast 
majority of gun owners, the majority of NRA members--want to close the 
loopholes, but the NRA has our Republican colleagues quaking in their 
boots, and they almost always bow down in obeisance to the NRA. The NRA 
says: Let us look at the legislation. Then it is so weakened, it 
virtually does nothing. That is not going to happen this time.
  We need a vote on H.R. 8--modest, bipartisan, universal background 
check legislation. Our Republican colleagues should realize this game 
they are playing of Pennsylvania Avenue hot potato has become a 
shopworn strategy to delay and kick responsibility around so 
Republicans can avoid addressing the tough issue--the issue the 
American people sent us here to take on.
  When Leader McConnell says he is just going to do what President 
Trump wants--how unreliable. President Trump has been all over the lot 
on gun safety, with no real results in the 2\1/2\ years he has been in 
office. What lack of leadership. Let's just do it. The public wants us 
to do it.
  What is different this time, my colleagues on the Republican side, is 
the public is so strongly on the side of what we want to do--closing 
the loopholes--that people will begin to pay a political price for not 
doing it. It used to be the equation was the other way, a small, 
dedicated core of advocates, quite extreme, on the pro-gun side had 
more weight than the vast majority of the American people who cared 
about this issue but didn't make it high up on their list. What has 
changed is this: It is one of the most important issues in the country. 
That is not I saying it; that is what the average citizen is saying.
  The idea now of bowing down to the NRA, of not doing anything they 
don't want you to do is a political loser. I urge my Republican 
colleagues, for the sake of our country, for the sake of lives, to 
change their minds and behave differently.
  The fact of the matter is this: The issue of gun violence is not 
going away, and the American people are not going to settle for half 
measures or half-baked solutions that the NRA crafts.
  While we continue to press the White House to make its position 
public, we urge Leader McConnell to do something very simple: Let us 
debate H.R. 8, the bipartisan, House-passed universal background checks 
bill on the floor ASAP.